French police are investigating the death of a popular streamer, who died during a nearly 12-day stream after apparently suffering abusive and humiliating treatment while viewers watched live.
Raphaël Graven, 46, known online as Jean Pormanove or JP, is one of the biggest streamers in France on the platform Kick and died on Monday.
The Nice prosecutor’s office confirmed to CNN that an investigation has been opened into his death and an autopsy ordered.
The 46-year-old military veteran had built a following numbering more than a million across different platforms streaming himself playing video games. He had often appeared in extreme challenges where other streamers assaulted or humiliated him.
Since 2023, he had appeared with several other streamers, principally Owen Cenazandotti, known as Naruto online, and Safine Hamadi, both of whom took part in his final livestream.
Cenazandotti announced his death Monday on Instagram. In the video livestream that appeared to show his death, after he stopped moving, viewers donated money to send messages alerting the sleeping streamers to Pormanove’s condition.
In dozens of videos from past livestreams reviewed by CNN, Pormanove appears to be the target of jokes, bullying, physical attacks, and degrading stunts.
Videos from their joint livestreams show Pormanove’s fellow streamers competing to see how long they could throttle him, others show him being shot with paintballs or doused with water.
During Pormanove’s final livestream, which appeared to run to nearly 300 hours, participants were woken up by the revving of a motorbike in their shared bedroom, or a leafblower. At one point, Pormanove appears to be woken up when a bucket of water is thrown over him.
In an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV, Yassin Sadouni, a lawyer for Cenazandotti, said Pormanove suffered from cardiovascular problems.
In one video, Pormanove talked of having to take medication. In another, Cenazandotti purports to read out messages Pormanove sent to his mother in which he complains of being “held prisoner” by his co-streamers.
The game “is going too far,” Cenazandotti said his message read, during Pormanove’s last livestream.
“I feel like I’m being held prisoner by their sh***y concept,” Cenazandotti said Pormanove wrote.