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The Weeknd has had so much success with his music over the past two years alone. Despite all the accolades he's earned lately, the "Blinding Lights" singer is extremely excited about his debut appearance on an upcoming episode of The Simpsons.
On Wednesday night, Mach 16, The Weeknd, born Abel Tesfaye, took to Twitter to reveal one of the two characters he'll be voicing in his first-ever role in the ongoing animated series. The initial tweet from the official Twitter account for The Simpsons features an image of a younger-looking Abel sitting with Bart Simpson at the base of a half-pipe skate ramp. Minutes later, the singer retweeted and added his own commentary.
"dream come true 💛💛💛," The Weeknd wrote.
“The Weeknd is a huge animation fan so he reached out to us, which we were super excited about,” the episode’s writer, Ryan Koh, told TV Insider. “He’s obviously a very cool human, so he seemed like a natural fit to play a very cool boy and his very cool dad. The two characters he plays are impossibly rich, super-confident and self-assured, and we hoped that since the Weeknd is an impossibly rich music megastar, he would also be confident and self-assured, and indeed he naturally gave off that vibe when we recorded him.”
The Weeknd will lend his voice to a famous child influencer, who owns a skate wear brand, as well as the child's father. In the episode entitled "Bart the Cool Kid," Bart becomes friends with the influencer and becomes more popular while Simpson's dad, Homer, tries to lead a mob of fellow loser dads into wearing the brand in an effort to feel young again.
This isn't The Weeknd's first animated guest spot on TV. Back in 2020, the Dawn FM singer appeared on an episode of FOX's American Dad. Ahead of his appearance, Abel told Variety that being on The Simpsons was on his bucket list.
"That would be a dream — and if they’re reading this, I actually have a pretty cool idea if they’re down," The Weeknd said.
The special episode of The Simpsons premieres on FOX this Sunday at 8 p.m.