Melanie Martinez has reacted to reports that her former partner Oliver Tree was among the passengers on a helicopter that crashed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday 14 June, an incident that local police said left six people dead.
In an Instagram story posted hours after the accident was reported, the Play Date singer said she had been 'an absolute wreck' as she processed the news.
The reports that reached Martinez came from Brazil after CNN Brazil and the Associated Press said Tree, whose real name is Oliver Tree Nickell, was on the manifest for one of two helicopters involved in a mid-air collision. Rio de Janeiro's Military Fire Department later confirmed to USA TODAY that the helicopters collided above the city before crashing into the parking lot of an electric car dealership and sparking a fire. The State Civil Police Press Office said an investigation was under way.
Responds To Oliver Tree Crash News
Martinez, 31, did not try to dress up the shock. Her message was plain, and perhaps that is what made it land. 'It's really hard to understand how someone who you once shared such a specific and formative time of your life with can all of a sudden be gone,' she wrote, describing Tree as a musician whose dedication to his work she had long admired.
She added that he was 'so dedicated to his art which I admired and respected so deeply.'
It was a brief tribute, but it carried the weight of someone speaking from inside a private history rather than from the distance of public grief. Martinez and Tree were reported to have dated from 2019 to mid-2020.
Parece que o Oliver Tree, ex da Melanie Martinez, acabou de falecer num acidente de helicóptero no Rio de Janeiro. Bizarro 😧 pic.twitter.com/uce2Bl3pcb pic.twitter.com/SimOBrKIpy
— Bender Marquez (@BenderMarquez) June 14, 2026
She later said their split was mutual and that they remained on 'good terms.' It was the response of someone who, by her own account, once knew him in a more intimate and formative.
The tone of her post was not grand or polished. It was immediate, unsettled and, in places, oddly tender. Martinez remembered Tree's 'contagious' laugh and said that anyone who knew him would look back on 'those moments of laughter and joy he so easily sparked.' She also praised the way he moved through his work, saying his ability to lead creatively and act decisively while keeping a sense of 'childlike wonder and awe' was inspiring.
Melanie And Oliver Tree's Shared Past
Tree, 32, was born Oliver Tree Nickell and came from Santa Cruz, California. He rose to wider recognition with 2021's 'Life Goes On,' a track that found a large audience on TikTok and marked his first entry on the Billboard Top 100 chart. His 2023 song 'Miss You,' from the album Alone in a Crowd, also reached the Top 100, peaking at 84.
That rise made him a familiar figure in pop's more unruly corners, where internet attention and mainstream chart life often overlap. His career was still very much in motion. He had been in Brazil between stops on his Love You Madly, Hate You Badly World's First World Tour when the crash happened.
Martinez's message suggested that, beyond the statistics and headlines, she was thinking about the person behind the stage persona. 'He had such a soft heart and was a true artist in every way,' she wrote. 'Rest in peace Oliver. I know you're making the angels giggle. I'll be here wondering what stunt and creative project you're scheming up in heaven. All my love.'
Oliver Tree's ex-girlfriend Melanie Martinez has a tour starting in July called Hades: The Sacrifice tour...
— Truth Seeker (@_TruthZone_) June 15, 2026
Very interesting seeing how Oliver Tree was "offed" in a helicopter crash. pic.twitter.com/uPuIKpQVPr
That final line was the kind of thing fans often read twice. It was affectionate, a little wry, and unmistakably personal. It also underlined the strange distance between public life and private memory. A former relationship, once reduced to a footnote in celebrity coverage, suddenly became part of a much larger and more sombre story.
The crash itself is still being investigated, and the full circumstances have not been established. What is clear is that the collision over Rio de Janeiro has left families, colleagues and former partners trying to make sense of a disaster that arrived with brutal speed.
Martinez, at least, said enough to make plain that the news hit her hard, and that Tree's memory, in her telling, was one of warmth, invention and a laugh people would not forget.
