The Weeknd has obliterated a tour record previously held by none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.
According to Buzzing Pop, the Canadian crooner’s After Hours Til Dawn Tour has become the best-selling tour in history by a Black artist with $350 million in ticket sales.
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MJ was previously the owner of the record with his 1987 Bad Tour, which grossed $311 million, adjusted for inflation. It came in support of his album of the same name and was the second highest-grossing tour of the ’80s behind Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour.
The Weeknd celebrated the achievement by posting a video on Twitter on Wednesday (July 12) of him performing an emphatic cover of Jackson’s “Dirty Diana” during a recent tour stop.
“My king. then, now and forever. rest easy,” he wrote in the caption.
The After Hours Til Dawn Tour took The Weeknd across North America between July and November 2022, while its international leg began this past June in Lisbon, Portugal.
There are still a few months left on the massive 64-date trek, which ends on October 25 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Kaytranada, Snoh Aalegra and Mike Dean have served as the support acts after original opener Doja Cat was forced to pull out due to tonsil surgery.
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The Weeknd has a long way to go yet before he claims the record for the highest-grossing tour ever, though, as that coveted title currently belongs to Elton John’s recently wrapped-up Farewell Yellow Brick Road, which pulled in a staggering $910 million across 320 shows.
The news comes shortly after The Weeknd equalled a separate Michael Jackson record in March, when he tied his longstanding Billboard chart feat of being the only artist to have multiple No. 1 hits from numerous albums.
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Jackson garnered multiple No. 1 hits on albums such as 1979’s Off the Wall, 1982’s Thriller, and 1987’s Bad, according to Billboard.
Meanwhile, The Weeknd topped the charts with singles from 2015’s Beauty Behind the Madness, 2016’s Starboy and 2020’s After Hours. He scored his seventh No. 1 in 2016 thanks to his “Die For You” collaboration with Ariana Grande.
The “Starboy” hitmaker recently made more history by breaking the London Stadium’s record for highest attendance during a show.
According to Variety, the 33-year-old played to 160,000 people across two nights at the English stadium earlier this month.
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The 80,000 fans he drew during each of those two shows represent the highest single-night attendance for any show at the venue.
The Weeknd celebrated the monumental achievement by posting a video on Twitter of him “dueting with 80,000 people” while performing his My Dear Melancholy smash “Call Out My Name.”
