Watch: D4vd Had “Significant Amount” of Child Sex Abuse Images in iCloud Account, Prosecutors Say
Content warning: This story discusses child abuse, abortion and murder.
D4vd‘s text messages with Celeste Rivas Hernandez have come to light.
Messages revealed during a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles July 24 provide some window into what happened between the singer (real name David Anthony Burke) and Rivas Hernandez before he allegedly murdered the teen in April 2025.
Prosecutors said the pair began a sexual relationship in November 2023—when she was 13 and he was 18—and texts indicated that Rivas Hernandez had gotten pregnant with his child within a few months, though she ultimately had an abortion.
D4vd texted her in January 2024, “im sorry again baby I didn’t want to ever put you through this,” and she replied, “no it’s ok we both aren’t able to take care of it,” per NBC News.
“wen u gonna get it done,” he asked, to which she replied, “two days,” the Los Angeles Times reported, citing prosecutors at the hearing.
He then wrote, “also my mother always told me to ask this question if I was ever in this situation … it is mine right?” and she answered, “of course its yours David.”
Seven months later, Rivas Hernandez expressed regret over how she “took an innocent life of a literal baby,” per the outlet.
“I care abt u i killed my kid [for] you,” she wrote to him in August 2024. “i don’t like talking about it cause it gets [me really] upset but id do anything to have it back.”
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The pair had broken up eight times by the end of the year, according to one of D4vd’s texts presented in court.
D4vd and Rivas Hernandez appeared to have had another falling out in March 2025, when she texted him that they could remain friends but only online and not in person, according to courtroom reporting from TMZ.
One text shown by prosecutors read, “I don’t want anything to do w u in person anymore.”
D4vd later texted Rivas Hernandez, “Yeah the boundary setting is terrible,” to which she responded, “It’s not even that, D, a lot more than just that,” per the outlet.
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The couple also got into an argument on April 22, 2025, according to a brief submitted by prosecutors and reshared by Courthouse News Service.
“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationship with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together,” the brief reads. “She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life.”
On April 23, 2025, a then-20-year-old, D4vd allegedly sent an Uber to pick up Rivas Hernandez, then 14, and take her to his Hollywood Hills home, where prosecutors say he killed her.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened,” the brief alleges, “very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood while she bled out.”
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D4vd allegedly dismembered Rivas Hernandez’s body and kept the pieces in two bags that he stored in the front trunk of his Tesla for months, until the car was towed in September 2025 and her remains were discovered.
Following his April 2026 arrest, D4vd was charged with one count of murder, one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and one count of unlawful mutilation of human remains, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
D4vd has pleaded not guilty, with his attorney Marilyn Bednarski arguing that the severely decomposed state of Rivas Hernandez’s remains makes it difficult to determine when she was killed and how.
During the July 24 hearing, D4vd’s counsel argued that the medical examiner “can’t rule that out that [Rivas Hernandez] would have been holding the instrument” that caused her injuries, per the L.A. Times.
Read on for more about the case against D4vd.
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