“I have no words to express the grievance over my wife Arianne’s death. She was intelligent , hard working and joyous person that lived a beautiful life… I love you honeybun, sleep tight….,” Aronian wrote on Twitter.

On March 14, Arianne Caoili was involved in a car accident, she crashed into a supporting concrete pillar under a bridge near the intersection of Sebastia Street and Isakov Avenue in Yerevan. She underwent several surgical operations. She was taken back to the intensive care unit on Monday, where she died.

Caoili was a chess player, and was awarded the title of Woman International Master (WIM) by FIDE. She won the Oceania women’s chess championship in 2009 and competed in seven Women’s Chess Olympiads.

She first met Aronian back in 1996 and started dating him in 2008. The two got engaged in 2015 and married in 2017.