Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd has updated his social media profiles to his birth name.

The artist, whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, changed his Twitter and Instagram accounts on Monday. His handles currently remain unchanged.

In an interview with W Magazine earlier this month, the Blinding Lights and Die For You singer said he was preparing to reinvent himself as a musician and wanted to “kill The Weeknd”.

“I’m going through a cathartic path right now,” the 33-year-old told the magazine.

“It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter.

“I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn.”

He said the album he was working on “is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd”.

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“This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”

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Last month he tweeted: “ABEL formally known as The Weeknd?” The post received more than 124,000 likes.

Earlier this year Mr Tesfaye was named the most popular artist in the world by Guinness World Records following an analysis of Spotify data.

It said he set two records: the most monthly listeners on Spotify – 111.4m as of 20 March, and the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

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