diff --git a/src/transformers/trainer.py b/src/transformers/trainer.py
index da60c8b8f8..e183ff007b 100755
--- a/src/transformers/trainer.py
+++ b/src/transformers/trainer.py
@@ -4591,7 +4591,10 @@ class Trainer:
         >>> model = trainer.free_memory(model)
         ```
         """
-        *models, self.optimizer = release_memory(*models, self.optimizer)
+        # We need to have these references so they can be set to `None`
+        *models, self.optimizer, self.model, self.deepspeed, self.model_wrapped = release_memory(
+            *models, self.optimizer, self.model, self.deepspeed, self.model_wrapped
+        )
         return models
 
     def propagate_args_to_deepspeed(self, auto_find_batch_size=False):