The Weeknd cuts concert short after suddenly losing his voice

The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour has become weirdly eventful (and potentially cursed), first with the kickoff in his hometown of Toronto getting postponed because of a Canada-wide wireless outage in July and now with him suddenly losing his voice in the middle of a show in Los Angeles—a show that was, for reasons we’ll get to—kind of weird and eventful already. This comes from Variety, which says The Weeknd performed for 15 minutes or so before informing the crowd that he had lost his voice and no longer felt like he could give the crowd the show that he had wanted to give them.

“I don’t know what just happened… but I just lost my voice,” he said. “This is killing me, I don’t want to stop the show but I can’t give you the concert I want to give you right now.” Variety says his voice “cracked audibly” when he first took the stage, and The Weeknd later said he was “devastated” after he felt his voice go “during the first song.”

The other weird bit is that the show in L.A. was being filmed for The Weeknd’s upcoming HBO series The Idol, with star Lily-Rose Depp apparently taking the stage at one point to film a scene for “one of the show’s penultimate moments” (according to Variety), with her making a speech in character about a “tough year” and learning that “this world can be a cruel and unforgiving place.”

The Idol stars Lily-Rose Depp as an up-and-coming pop star who falls under the sway of The Weeknd’s character—who, at least according to initial reports that may no longer be accurate—might be some kind of cult leader. For all we know, The Weeknd’s losing his voice and being unable to perform was also part of the show… but that seems unlikely.