“The pop-star life is a new challenge,” Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd admits to Billboard.

Read the Cover Story: The Weeknd on Why 'Nobody Can Stop Me But Myself'

“When she introduced me and the whole stadium screamed their lungs out, it kind of threw me off," Tesfaye says about being featured him as a guest at Taylor Swift's New Jersey tour stop in July. "I did not expect that reaction.”

Read the Cover Story: The Weeknd on Why 'Nobody Can Stop Me But Myself'

When Tesfaye dropped out of high school to move to downtown Toronto to make music, he became estranged from his Ethiopian-Canadian single mother. But they've since reconnected. “I couldn’t face her until I made something out of myself,” he says. “I couldn’t go back home as a nobody.”

Read the Cover Story: The Weeknd on Why 'Nobody Can Stop Me But Myself'

“I still loosen up, but I have much more control. I can go overboard, but nobody can stop me but myself," he explains. "Me and myself have a better relationship now than we did back then.” 

Read the Cover Story: The Weeknd on Why 'Nobody Can Stop Me But Myself'