I'm Gildas Garrec, CBT practitioner. Reading a public relationship history like this one often brings up the same question closer to home — what does your pattern look like? I built a fear of abandonment test that maps how separation, reassurance-seeking, and the urge to pull back show up in your own relationships, with a guide to take the reflection further than the score alone. I also wrote a book on the subject this article touches on directly — The Absent Father — if you'd like to go further. And if it's your own relationship's exchanges you'd rather look at directly, ScanMyLove gives you an objective, structured read of how you and your partner actually communicate.

The Weeknd's Dating History: Bella Hadid, Selena Gomez, and What the Pattern Reveals

Few artists have turned heartbreak into commercial success as visibly as The Weeknd. Born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye on February 16, 1990, in Scarborough, Toronto, the Canadian singer has spent over a decade in the public eye — not only for his music, but for a string of high-profile relationships that have played out largely in tabloids, red carpets, and, according to many critics, his own lyrics. This is a factual look at what has actually been documented about his dating history, and at the broader relational pattern it illustrates.

A Childhood Marked by Absence, in His Own Words

Tesfaye is the only child of Ethiopian immigrants, Makkonen Tesfaye and Samrawit Hailu, who separated shortly after his birth. He was raised largely by his mother and his grandmother in Scarborough, and has spoken directly and repeatedly about growing up without his father present. "I didn't have a father figure in the house. No boys around. Just me and my mom," he told The Guardian. Asked about the rare occasions he did see his father, he told Rolling Stone: "I saw him vaguely when I was 6, and then again when I was 11 or 12, and he had a new family and kids."

At 17, he left home with friends for what he has described, in a 2013 Reddit AMA, as a weekend that never ended: "I left home when I was about 17, dropped out of high school." That episode is the origin he has publicly credited for his stage name — "The Weeknd," missing its final "e" for trademark reasons, since a Canadian band called The Weekend already existed. He has since been careful to frame the story on its own terms rather than as a template: "[I'm] not trying to inspire people to drop out of school or leave home at 16 or 17. It's just something that — it's who I am."

These are facts he has chosen to share publicly, not conclusions drawn about him by outside observers — an important distinction that shapes how the rest of his relationship history should be read.

The Documented Relationships

Bella Hadid (2015–2016). The Weeknd began dating model Bella Hadid in early 2015; the couple were first photographed together publicly at Coachella that year. They split in November 2016, a separation widely attributed at the time to the difficulty of reconciling his touring schedule with her international modeling calendar. During the relationship, Hadid spoke openly about it — in Vogue's "73 Questions," asked who made her laugh hardest and who was the most beautiful person she knew, she answered "my boyfriend" both times, referring to Tesfaye. Selena Gomez (January–autumn 2017). About two months after his first split from Hadid, The Weeknd began dating Selena Gomez in January 2017. The relationship became public quickly: the pair were seen together at Coachella in April, then made their red-carpet debut together at the Met Gala in May. Reports place the end of the relationship in the autumn of 2017, with sources differing slightly on the exact month. The relationship also coincided, chronologically, with Gomez's recovery from a kidney transplant, publicly disclosed in September 2017 — a timing that was widely noted by media at the time as a factual coincidence, not a judgment on either party. Reunion with Bella Hadid (2018–2019). The Weeknd and Hadid rekindled their relationship in May 2018 and split again, this time reportedly for good, in August 2019. After the breakup, Hadid addressed it directly in Teen Vogue: "I'll always respect him, and I'll always love him. Sometimes you want to be sad about it or handle it differently, but at the end of the day, you never want to burn a bridge that you've fought so hard to build." The My Dear Melancholy interlude. In March 2018, The Weeknd released the EP My Dear Melancholy, widely interpreted by music critics as a project shaped by his recent breakups with Gomez and then Hadid. He has described the recording process as "cathartic," adding that the project was deliberately short "because that's all I had to say on this situation," and that he set aside a different, more "upbeat" album because "I don't want to perform something that I don't feel." When directly asked which songs referred to which ex-partner, his answer was unambiguous: "No comment." That refusal matters — the media's reading of the record as autobiographical is an interpretation, not something Tesfaye himself has confirmed, and this article does not treat it as established fact. Simi Khadra (since 2022). Since 2022, The Weeknd has been linked to DJ and model Simi Khadra, with the relationship notably more private than his earlier ones. The two have nonetheless been photographed together on several occasions through 2025, including at a post-Grammys event in February, at Khadra's birthday celebration in late March, and at a film premiere party in May. In mid-2026, some outlets speculated about a possible change in the couple's status; as of this writing, neither party has confirmed or denied any such development, and that speculation is reported here only as unconfirmed.

A Pattern the Media Keeps Naming: Intimacy Under Constant Observation

Beyond the individual chronology, The Weeknd's relationship history illustrates a broader phenomenon that plays out across many high-visibility public figures: relationships that develop, strain, and sometimes end under near-constant media and fan observation. Coachella sightings, red-carpet debuts, paparazzi photographs, and post-breakup interviews are not incidental details in these stories — they are the medium through which the relationship itself becomes legible to the public, often in real time and often before the people involved have had the private space to process it themselves.

This dynamic is well documented in the broader research on celebrity relationships: public visibility tends to compress the normal privacy of relationship formation, conflict, and repair into events that are simultaneously personal and public property. It can accelerate the sense of commitment (the "official" debut at a high-profile event) while also multiplying the pressure points that ordinarily stay private in non-public relationships — scheduling conflicts, rumor management, and the scrutiny of every public appearance as a signal of the relationship's health.

Releasing a project like My Dear Melancholy shortly after a high-profile breakup is itself part of a well-documented pattern among musicians and writers: turning a personal chapter into public creative work, independently of whatever it does or does not resolve for the artist privately — a question this article, like Tesfaye's own answer to it ("No comment"), does not attempt to settle in The Weeknd's specific case.

What the Broader Research Says About Growing Up Without a Present Father

Independently of The Weeknd's own case, developmental psychology has studied, at a population level, how the physical or emotional absence of a father figure during childhood is associated with certain adult relational patterns — including, for some individuals, difficulty with trust, a heightened sensitivity to separation, or an orientation toward either strong self-reliance or strong reassurance-seeking in intimate relationships. Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and extended by later researchers, frames these patterns as shaped by the reliability of early caregiving relationships rather than as fixed personality traits.

This body of research offers a general lens for understanding why a documented childhood detail — a father seen only twice by age twelve, a mother working multiple jobs, a grandmother filling much of the caregiving role — is often discussed publicly by artists themselves as relevant context for their adult lives. It does not, however, tell us anything specific about The Weeknd's own inner life, motivations, or the actual dynamics of any of his relationships. He has shared some facts about his childhood publicly; he has not offered, and this article does not supply, a psychological explanation of his adult relationships built on those facts.

The Limits of This Reading

Everything factual in this article — dates, breakups, direct quotes — is drawn from public, sourced statements by The Weeknd, Bella Hadid, or documented reporting at the time. The psychological material above describes general research findings, not an assessment of The Weeknd as an individual. No inference is made here about why any specific relationship ended, what he felt during any of them, or how his childhood shaped his adult choices — those would be conclusions no outside observer, including this one, is in a position to draw about a living person from public facts alone.

Also read

• Absent Father Effect: 5 Ways It Shapes Adult Relationships
• Fear of Abandonment: Origins & 5 Ways to Break Free

FAQ

Who has The Weeknd dated?

Publicly documented relationships include Bella Hadid, first from early 2015 to November 2016 and again from May 2018 to August 2019, and Selena Gomez, from January to autumn 2017. Since 2022, he has been linked to DJ and model Simi Khadra, in a relationship that has stayed notably more private than his earlier, widely documented ones.

Is The Weeknd still with Bella Hadid?

No. Their second and, according to reporting at the time, final split took place in August 2019. Hadid later addressed the breakup directly in Teen Vogue, saying she would "always respect him" and "always love him," and no reconciliation has been confirmed since.

Does The Weeknd's music reference his real relationships?

He has declined to confirm this directly. Asked which songs on My Dear Melancholy — released in March 2018, after his breakups with Gomez and then Hadid — referred to which ex-partner, his answer was "No comment." Media readings of the EP as autobiographical remain an interpretation, not something Tesfaye has confirmed, and this article does not treat it as established fact.