Oliver Tree’s mom has paid a moving tribute days after her son was killed in a helicopter crash — while sharing a throwback photo of the “Alien Boy” singer looking dramatically different.
“Our dear son Oliver, you made this world a better place,” Christine Begin Nickell wrote on Facebook Thursday, after Tree was killed in a helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“We are so proud of you. RIP,” she wrote along with three heart emojis, the middle one broken.
The proud mom shared the post along with a photo of the singer — best known for his quirky bowl-cut mullet hairstyle — as a fresh-faced youngster with a Justin Bieber-style haircut under a baseball cap, while holding a small dog.
The 32-year-old singer was one of six people killed Sunday when a Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter collided with another aircraft about 300 feet above the Rio neighborhood of Recreio dos Bandeirantes.
Also killed were YouTube star Gaspar “Gaspi” Prim, 23, director and screenwriter Lucas Vignale, 29, music producer Lucas Brito Chaves, 21, and pilots Charles Marsillac and Alexandre Souza.
The crash sparked a fire at an electric vehicle dealership below, setting about 20 cars ablaze.
Tree’s girlfriend, fashion photographer Fiona Chernavskaya, also paid tribute this week while asking fans to stop speculating about their relationship.
“Right now im mourning my partner and best friend, anything else is unimportant. please have some respect,” she wrote on Instagram Wednesday.
“I don’t want to see gossip about other women that Oliver may have been seeing. We were monogamous,” she added.
The singer’s death also renewed attention on a recent interview in which he said he wouldn’t leave his family “a f–king penny” if he died.
“I don’t believe that any of the wealth, or the things that get made from it, is mine. So when I die, my will is set up that when I pass, my family, no one’s going to get a penny,” Tree said on the April 24 episode of “The Zach Sang Show.”
“If I have a wife or kids or anything, they’re not getting a f–king penny,” he added.
“I’ll get my kids through college. That’s the agreement. But there’s not going to be a silver spoon.”
“The idea is, when I die, all the money is going to go back to artists.”
Tree, who had more than 11 million monthly Spotify listeners, had completed four dates on his global “World’s First World Tour” before the fatal crash.
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