The Weeknd used to never do interviews when he first started back in 2011, but thankfully, as his celebrity has risen, he’s finally began opening up. Covering next month’s issue of Rolling Stone, the XO singer discussed everything from his relationship with Bella Hadid, to regrets about Drake, how he was discovered and more.

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On how Drake found him:

He and his crew posted three songs on YouTube and started spamming their friends on Facebook, then watched the play counts slowly climb. “I don’t know how many it actually was, but it felt like a million,” Tesfaye says. “Five hundred plays? Holy shit!” Toronto being a small town in some ways, the songs were heard by Drake’s manager, Oliver El-Khatib, who posted them to the OVO blog, where they promptly blew up. “Apparently, Drake wasn’t even fucking with it at first,” Tesfaye says today. “Oliver was the one vouching for me.”

On his regrets with Drake:

“I gave up almost half of my album [for him to use on Take Care.] It’s hard. I will always be thankful — if it wasn’t for the light he shined on me, who knows where I’d be. And everything happens for a reason. You never know what I would say if this success wasn’t in front of me now.”

On Bella:

“I actually asked her to be on the artwork for Beauty Behind the Madness. My motive was literally to work with her.” But when she declined, “I was like, ‘All right, cool — we can meet up face-to-face.'” Tesfaye says he loves how hardworking she is, and how close she is with her family. “It just kind of fell into my lap,” he says. “If this had happened two years ago — well,” he catches himself, “she couldn’t.” (Two years ago, Hadid would have been 16.) “But if I’d met someone two years ago, I probably would’ve fucked it up. But I’m more — how do I say it? — clear-thinking now.”

Read the full interview here.