Tose Proeski before his death: I have to play
On the 19th anniversary of the singer's death, childhood friend Cvetan Nikolovski described their last meeting on a volleyball court in Krusevo.
Cvetan Nikolovski, a childhood friend of Tose Proeski, told media on October 16, 2026, the 19th anniversary of the singer’s death, what Tose said when they last saw each other, two days before the crash.
Proeski died on October 16, 2007, aged 26, in a traffic accident on the Zagreb-Lipovac highway, near the entrance to Nova Gradiska in Croatia. His manager, Ljiljana Petrovic, was in the car with him.
What did Tose say on the court in Krusevo?
Nikolovski and Proeski played volleyball for the same club from Krusevo. Their last match came two days before the crash, even though Tose had hurt his knee in training two weeks earlier.
Nikolovski remembers that the singer did not hesitate: “I have a brace, I’ll strap it on, I have to play.” He calls that match Tose’s last point. As they were leaving, he says, the singer told them: “Take care of yourselves, and I’ll be back. After that I’m carrying on at an even faster pace.”
At the time, Proeski was in Skopje recording the show “Vrteska”. According to Nikolovski, he was thinking about the club before the trip: he wanted to bring his friend Nikola, who played for another club, into the Krusevo team. After the recording, over dinner, he agreed with him to meet for a photo on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
“Sadly, that Tuesday we got the worst news we could have heard,” Nikolovski said.
Tose, he recalls, was also the last to leave training:
We met back when we were kids. Tose is one of a kind, unique. The man was born like that, one of a kind. He tried to be the best at everything. At training, too, he was the last one to leave. Sometimes we couldn’t get him off the court.
Of the singer as a friend, he added: “He was a true friend. He would also start singing in company, in a tavern. We kept each other’s secrets.”
What does Zoran Bozinovski claim?
On the same day, Macedonian journalist Zoran Bozinovski spoke to Kurir. He claims that Ljiljana Petrovic did not support Tose’s relationship with Andrijana Budimir, his former girlfriend, and tried to end it.
Bozinovski says the manager took it hard that the singer took Andrijana on a pilgrimage rather than her:
Ljilja saw Andrijana as a lesser being, humiliated and insulted her, worked against her. She did everything to wreck that love, and in the end she partly succeeded.
He also said Andrijana was somebody before the relationship with Tose: “Tose wasn’t her identification, she was Andrijana Budimir all along.” According to him, Budimir has not spoken publicly because she did not want to, which is her right.
Ljiljana Petrovic informally denied all of Bozinovski’s claims to Kurir, but declined to give an official statement or to appear on a show where she could present her side.
How did Tose Proeski die?
The accident happened on the Zagreb-Lipovac highway, at the entrance to Nova Gradiska. The singer was 26. Today, nineteen years later, his friends from the volleyball club remember him as the man who played with a brace on his knee.
