The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, has an excellent new cover interview in Rolling Stone. If you’ve read interviews about The Weeknd before, you already know some of this stuff – he wants to be Michael Jackson. He used to be a heavy drug user. He’s from Canada. He’s dating Bella Hadid. His most recent album, Beauty Behind the Madness, is a huge success and he’s already got three big #1 hits (Can’t Feel My Face, Earned It and The Hills). And he’s only 25 years old. In the RS piece – which you can read here – he talks about his new life as a major musical talent, he name-drops tons of celebrities and he often comes across as somewhat self-absorbed or hyper self-aware, or maybe he’s just trying to make sense out of his new world. There are some interesting details that made me rethink Abel – he used to decline interviews because he worried he wasn’t articulate enough, and he does crossword puzzles to improve his vocabulary.

In any case, there’s one particular story that’s getting a lot of attention. The section is about Abel’s trademark dreadlocks, done purposefully to look like Jean-Michel Basquiat. And it’s about Taylor Swift, who is incredibly annoying.

Tesfaye’s hair can be divided into roughly four sectors, each with its own distinct personality (front left: flopped-over moose antler; back left: tiny octopus). The overall effect is that of a rare double mullet: party in the front, party in the back. There’s not much to maintaining it, he says — just a hard shampoo every once in a while. But there are other annoying parts. “Sleeping. I wake up with neck pains sometimes. And not being able to hide myself.”

Tesfaye says the hair was partly inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. He began growing it out four years ago: “I want to be remembered as iconic and different,” he says. “So I was like, ‘F–k it — I’m gonna let my hair just be what it wants.’ I’ll probably cut it if it starts interfering with my sight. I can kind of see it right now. But if I cut it, I’d look like everyone else. And that’s just so boring to me.”

Tesfaye’s hair also prompted one of his most WTF celebrity encounters. He was at a party for Sam Smith after this year’s Grammys, at an $80 million mansion in Bel-Air. Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran were there; Disclosure were DJ’ing. “Everyone was hammered,” Tesfaye says. “Sam had just won, like, every Grammy, so he was having the time of his life. Max Martin actually left because everyone was so drunk. Unfortunately, that was the one month I decided to stop drinking. Everybody was having a great time, all these cool things were happening, and I was shaking, like — ‘F–k, I really want a drink.'”

That’s when he met Taylor Swift. “She actually schooled me on my own sh-t,” Tesfaye says. “She was like, ‘I’ve been listening to ‘The Morning’ [from House of Balloons] for years — it’s one of my favorite songs ever!’ I mean, she might have just Googled it. But she seemed genuine.”

Tesfaye says Swift went on for about 15 minutes. “But the whole time she was talking,” he says, “she was kind of, like, petting my hair? I think she was just drawn to it — she must have been a little gone off a few drinks. And of course I’m not going to be like, ‘Hey, can you stop?’ I mean, it felt good! But when she started petting my hair, that’s when I was like, ‘I definitely need a drink.'”

[From Rolling Stone]

And there you have it. Taylor Swift is the kind of woman who drunkenly pets R&B superstars like they are one of her Scottish fold kitties. And yes, maybe Tay-Tay was drunk. Or maybe she was, um, on something else? Just so we’re clear: do not touch someone’s hair, even if you’re drunk/rolling/high. Don’t do it.

Anyway, unlike The Weeknd’s New York Times profile several months back, I get a much better sense of who he is in this piece. He seems incredibly close to his mom – he bought her a big house in Toronto, although he admits, “I think me getting my diploma would make her much happier, though.”

Photos courtesy of Rolling Stone, Getty, WENN.