The unsettling truth behind Google’s most-searched person of the year (2025)

Every December brings a new season of year-in-review roundups, Spotify Wrapped, YouTube recaps, and Google’s vast portrait of what the world wanted to understand. In 2025, those rankings included the usual mix of celebrities, politicians and headline makers.

Kendrick Lamar, Pope Leo XIV, Jimmy Kimmel and others all appeared high on the list.But the most-searched person of the year was a 20-year-old musician whose name surged for reasons far darker than fame.

A rising pop artist thrust into a criminal investigation

The most-searched person on Google in 2025 was D4vd (real name David Anthony Burke), best known for songs like Feel It and Here With Me. His searches were largely flat all year, until September, when the body of a teenage girl, Celeste Rivas, was found in the boot of a Tesla registered to him.According to multiple reports that emerged after the discovery, Rivas had gone missing from Lake Elsinore, California at 13 and had turned 15 by the time her body was located, after a foul smell coming from the impounded Tesla led authorities to discover her remains.The car was registered to D4vd, the young pop artist known for tracks that have dominated TikTok and streaming charts. He had not been at the scene, and police have repeatedly stated that he is not an official suspect and that no charges have been filed against him.

Despite this, social media quickly cast him in that role anyway, with influencers and amateur sleuths circulating theories and treating the unusual circumstances as fuel for their own unofficial investigations. A spokesperson said Burke was informed while on tour and is fully cooperating with authorities, though his connection to the vehicle means he remains a central figure in the ongoing inquiry.

A spokesperson for Burke said at the time: “D4vd has been informed about what’s happened. And, although he is still out on tour, he is fully cooperating with the authorities.”Police said the condition of the remains means the cause of death may ultimately be classified as undetermined, but they are treating the case as a homicide and the investigation is ongoing.

A troubling coincidence: a leaked song called “Celeste”

Compounding public fascination was the sudden appearance of a leaked track attributed to Burke on SoundCloud, titled “Celeste.” The song contains some unusual and provocative lyrics that fueled online speculation. While its timing drew attention, the track has not been connected to the investigation, and Burke has not been charged with any crime.

How Google data reflected the world’s morbid curiosity

Search data shows how sharply public interest in Burke shifted. For most of the year, his name barely registered on Google, sitting at just 1 out of 100. When his album dropped in April, it rose slightly to 2. Everything changed in September: after Rivas’ remains were discovered, searches for Burke soared to 100, the maximum level recorded, and remained high for several days, according to Music Ally.That single spike pushed him above global figures typically expected to dominate an annual list such as:

Investigators are still working to determine how and when Rivas died. With no charges filed and no suspect named, a number of crucial questions remain unresolved. What police have confirmed is limited, and the absence of further detail has only deepened the public’s fixation on the case, and on Burke. For now, the only certainty is that the most searched person of 2025 became so not because of a career milestone, but because the internet was trying to understand a death that remains shrouded in uncertainty.