Singer The Weeknd spotted wearing a Rolex

When The Weeknd's 'After Hours' album cover dropped in March 2020, the internet focused on the bruised face and disheveled tuxedo. Collectors noticed something else: on his wrist sat a vintage Rolex Cellini King Midas ref. 5544, one of the strangest and most singular timepieces Rolex has ever produced. The styling choice was deliberate — a watch that is literally named after greed and excess, worn by a character study in self-destruction.

The Rolex Cellini King Midas ref. 5544 dates to the early 1970s, part of Rolex's Cellini dress line but a radical outlier within it. The case is crafted entirely in 18K yellow gold and takes a dramatically asymmetric, almost trapezoidal form with sweeping lugs that flare away from the dial in a manner unlike anything else in the Rolex catalog. Swiss designer Gilbert Albert is credited with the King Midas concept, which Rolex licensed and produced. The dial is typically engine-turned or textured gold, devoid of indices in some configurations, leaning fully into its identity as a jewel-piece first and timepiece second. Powering it is a manually wound movement — function deliberately subordinated to form.

For vintage Rolex collectors, the King Midas ref. 5544 occupies a genuinely peculiar corner of the catalog. It attracts a buyer who already knows Rolex deeply — someone past the Submariner and Daytona phase, hunting the marque's forgotten avant-garde period. Production numbers were limited, examples in strong condition are scarce, and the watch rarely surfaces at auction. When it does, it tends to reward patience: gold content alone provides a floor, and aesthetic cult status does the rest.

The Weeknd's visual identity across the 'After Hours' era was tightly art-directed, referencing 1980s excess and moral corruption. The King Midas — a watch literally named for a curse of infinite gold — fits that narrative with an almost literary precision. It is not a watch worn casually.

Because the ref. 5544 is a vintage piece with no current retail equivalent, Rolex lists no official price. On the secondary market, examples in solid condition trade in a wide range depending on dial variant, case crispness, and provenance, typically from the mid-thousands into the low five figures for exceptional examples.