D4vd, the 21-year-old pop singer made famous by his 2022 hit “Romantic Homicide,” is facing first-degree murder charges for allegedly killing and dismembering the body of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Prosecutors claim the musician, born David Anthony Burke, was having an illegal sexual relationship with the teenager and murdered her after she “threatened to expose his criminal conduct and devastate his musical career.”
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office alleges the murder occurred on April 23, 2025 — just two days before the release of D4vd’s debut album, Withered, which opened at No. 13 on the Billboard 200. Months later, police discovered Rivas’ decomposed and dismembered body in an impounded Tesla registered to D4vd.
D4vd has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his attorneys say they will “vigorously defend” him in court. “Let us be clear,” said the singer’s lawyers in a statement following his arrest, “the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”
The case has already had swift consequences for D4vd’s career. After Rivas’ body was discovered, his headlining Withered tour was cut short, and a deluxe version of the album got shelved. He was then dropped by Darkroom/Interscope Records, Sony Music Publishing and The·Team (formerly Wasserman).
Billboard has put together a timeline of D4vd’s legal case, and we’ll keep you up to date with new developments as it moves forward. (For more details about D4vd’s music career, check out our separate story on his trajectory in the industry.)
