Is The Weeknd off the market? The singer celebrated his 32nd birthday Sin City style with DJ Simi Khadra. As recently as January, The Weeknd was rumored to be dating Angelina Jolie.
Khadra, 28, is part of a DJ partnership with her identical twin sister, Haya. The pair are collectively known as Simi Haze and boast close to 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
TMZ posted a video on February 22 apparently showing The Weeknd and Khadra examining each other’s tonsils at the Delilah nightclub in Las Vegas over the weekend. The gossip site also reported that Toronto’s finest, Drake, as well as The Swedish House Mafia, were also in attendance at the festivities.
E! News quotes a “source” saying that The Weeknd and Khadra are merely “friends” and have been so “for years.” A separate source told the website, “They are not dating. They have mutual interests and are enjoying putting their ideas together to see what they can come up with. They have been recently talking about partnering on a few humanitarian projects together. He loves talking about movies and the art form.”
Khadra and The Weeknd have been linked together since 2021
Rumors about a dalliance between The Weeknd and Khadra go back to 2021. Ace Showbiz reported at the time that The Weeknd’s former main squeeze, Bella Hadid, had unfollowed Khadra on social media over the dating rumors. An April 2018 post from Hadid celebrating the twins’ birthday, has also been removed, according to Emirates Woman.
Khadra says: “When someone asks where I’m from, I always say I’m Palestinian first”
Khadra told GQ Middle East in a March 2020 feature that she and her sister divided their formative years between Saudi Arabia, England, and Los Angeles. Khadra told the magazine, “I think connecting with people is all about understanding that we all come from such a complex arrangement of experiences and cultures. We need to have an appreciation for that and I think that understanding is the glue.” The piece refers to the pair as the “world’s most stylish purveyors of electronica sets.” Khadra also said in the interview, “When someone asks where I’m from, I always say I’m Palestinian first.”
Khadra told author Jay Shetty during an interview in December 2021, “Learning about our culture, and I think even talking on Palestine on our platform, I feel lucky because we are Palestinians. So, in many ways, we have carte blanche to talk about it and people are not going to criticize us the way they criticize somebody who’s not Palestinian.”
Khadra has been described as being “Besties” with The Weeknd’s ex, Bella Hadid
W Magazine reported in May 2016, that the twins were both seniors at the University of Southern California. During their senior year, the twins spent time DJing at Coachella. The pair majored in Film Production and Fine Art. Neither of the sisters were involved in sorority life nor did they live on campus while pursuing their education.
In a separate interview with W Magazine in June 2018, Khadra said she and her sister first got into DJing after being asked by friends to MC parties. The intro to that article refers to the twins as being “besties” with Belle Hadid and Kendall Jenner.
Khadra told Vogue in August 2018 that she counts Yoko Ono among her inspirations.