The Weeknd Sports Face Bandages At AMAs

The Weeknd showed up to the American Music Awards on Sunday with his face heavily bandaged as he both performed and accepted his award for favorite soul/R&B album. His somewhat concerning injured appearance follows a theme he’s started for his new album, After Hours.

After Hours‘ face injury motif began with the music video for The Weeknd’s single “Blinding Lights.”

In the video, which picks up after the video for his song “Heartless,” The Weeknd’s character gets beat up by a pair of bouncers, who end up breaking his nose. The timeline of the video is in non-sequential order, so he sports his beaten and bloodied appearance throughout.

When The Weeknd hosted Saturday Night Live not long after, he was wearing the costume and makeup of his character in the music video.

By then, it looked like he had cleaned up some of the blood, and had put on a bandage over his broken nose.

The theme continued a few months later at the VMAs, with the same suit and broken nose minus the SNL bandage.

After showing up at the AMAs looking like his character’s wounds have again worsened, fans have started to speculate at what his appearance at the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show will look like, many suggesting a full-body cast.

“SNEAK PEEK: The Weeknd’s Super Bowl look,” one Twitter user captioned a photo of the performer’s face at the AMAs photoshopped onto a full-body cast.

“The Weeknd by the time he performs at the Super Bowl,” another user captioned a photo of a SpongeBob SquarePants character similarly injured.

“By the time it’s superbowl he bouta be performing in a stretcher,” another user joked.