Investigations are continuing in France into the circumstances of the death on Monday of 46-year-old Raphaël Graven, better known on social media as “Jean Pormanove”, or simply “JP”, during a live broadcast on an online streaming channel in which viewers paid to watch him being subjected to psychological and physical abuse by his fellow streamers.
The events have caused widespread outcry, not only over the existence of a channel that attracts an audience of thousands to watch and indirectly take part in the sadistic beatings and bullying of Graven and, to lesser extent, a handicapped man, but also the apparent laisser-faire of Kick, the Australian platform hosting the streaming channel.
Questions are also raised as to why the junior minister in charge of digital affairs and Artificial Intelligence, Clara Chappaz, failed to take action after Mediapart published its first revelations about the perverse content of the live streaming channel in December 2024.
Following Graven’s death this week, Chappaz belatedly denounced the live streaming channel as one of “absolute horror”, and announced she had at last referred the case to ARCOM, France’s Audiovisual and Digital Communications Authority.
The results of an autopsy to establish the cause of Graven’s death, published on Thursday by the public prosecution services in Nice, south-east France, found that he had not suffered any “internal” or “external” injury that could explain his death, which was “not linked to the involvement of someone else”. Further examinations, notably toxicological tests, were ordered by the prosecutors in charge of a preliminary investigation into Graven’s death.
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Graven, a former soldier who entered the world of streaming at the beginning of the 2010s, was found dead in the small town of Contes, close to Nice, in the premises he and his co-streamers used to film the often violent scenes on their channel, hosted by Australian live streaming platform Kick, on which Graven began appearing in 2023. The channel operated under the names of “Lokal” and "Jeanpormanove", a joined-up version of Graven’s social media name.
Kick, founded in 2022, offers significantly more remuneration to those who host their channels on the platform than its competitors and, importantly, applies significantly less moderation of content than similar platforms, like Amazon-owned Twitch where Graven once appeared. The Jeanpormanove channel became the most-viewed of any on Kick in France. The most recent count showed it had 192,500 subscribers, and every night pulled in an average of around 15,000 real-time viewers. Apart from watching the cruel antics of his co-streamers, viewers could choose, in exchange for a donation, specific forms of abuse and humiliation to be meted out to Graven.
Graven died in bed, relayed live on camera, after 12 days of a marathon live stream in which, among other abuse, he was repeatedly slapped and punched, half-strangled and smothered with a bag, and woken from slumber with cold water thrown at him.
While Graven was the star victim of the show, a handicapped man, who regularly appears on the channel under the name of Coudoux, was also physically assaulted, and the two were made to hit each other. Their principal tormentors, during both the close to 300 hours of non-stop streaming, and also during the broadcasts over previous months, were two streamer colleagues of Graven, Owen Cenazandotti and Safine Hamadi, who appear on the channel under the names, respectively, of Naruto and Safine. They were joined for the marathon streaming by another on-screen bully who went by the name of “3Cheveux”.
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On December 16th last year, the Nice public prosecution services opened an investigation in response to Mediapart’s revelations that month about the livestreaming channel, a reaction in stark contrast to the inaction of the ministry for digital affairs. The investigation, which is ongoing and in parallel to that into Graven’s death, is to establish whether Safine and Naruto committed crimes of “public provocation” involving “hatred or violence towards a person or group of persons because of their handicap, voluntary violence by a gang against vulnerable persons” and broadcasting images of crimes “against a person’s bodily integrity”.
On January 8th this year, Safine and Naruto were taken into custody and questioned by police, as part of the probe, before being released without further action against them. Graven and Coudoux were also questioned, when, read a statement afterwards from the Nice prosecutor’s, they said “that the events were part of a presentation aimed at ‘creating a buzz’ in order to earn money”. All four denied any crimes were committed during their streaming, and said no-one was injured, that all were “totally free in their movements and decisions, and refused to be examined by a doctor and psychiatrist”, added the prosecutors.
“All the scenes that could appear to be ill-treatment are in reality part of a script,” insisted Safine’s lawyer Kada Sadouni, in an interview this week with France Info radio.
Twelve days of perversion
When the last live stream began on August 5th, the streamers announced that it would continue 24 hours per day until whenever donations from viewers totalled 40,000 euros. At the time of Graven’s death, they had collected 36,411 euros.
Soon after, Kick announced that all the co-streamers involved in the event were henceforth banned from the platform while awaiting the results of the official investigations. Meanwhile, the Canadian rapper Drake and controversial US streamer Adin Ross, who both have financial connections with Kick’s parent company, pledged to pay for Graven’s funeral.
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Mediapart has studied a recording of the images streamed for precisely 298 hours. Apart from the regular slaps and punches (sometimes for losing a video game), mock strangulations, smothering, Graven also received an electric discharge from an e-collar for dogs, had his hair pulled, was made to clean soiled toilettes and was awoken from sleep by people jumping on him. Viewers were told they could choose, for 10 euros, who among the streamers should be woken with a flute playing in their ears.
On several occasions, Graven threatened to leave the premises, saying he wanted to lodge a complaint with police or to visit a hospital. After 70 hours of the streaming, he complained of neck pain and asked for the emergency services to be called. After 100 hours of streaming, he lay on his bed complaining of headache, when he was jumped upon in response. On August 17th, after he had received, as every day, numerous slaps, he again threatened to lodge a complaint with police. After one particularly violent slap he asked for someone to “call the hospital”. At around 1am on August 18th, the streamers went to bed. Shortly after, Graven was found to have died.
The recorded images also showed that the streamers received two visits from the gendarmerie, on August 13th and 14th, apparently after what Naruto described as a “swat”, meaning a practical joke by other streamers who create a scene. The first visit was in response to a call, the second was apparently to ask for the streamers’ ID documents to run a check on any criminal history. Both the gendarmerie and the Nice public prosecution services declined to respond to Mediapart’s request for an explanation of the officers’ visit.
Mediapart has seen a recorded extract from a livestream broadcast on the Jeanpormanove channel on July 26th this year, in which Naruto and Safine discuss the possibility of Graven dying.
Safine: “Imagine, there we are laughing and everything, and…”
Naruto: “He snuffs it.”
Safine: “During a live. We’re dead.”
The pair then ask Graven, Coudoux and another streamer with them to declare, face to camera, that if they were to die during a live stream it is their own responsibility. The three accept to do so, although Graven appeared to be initially hesitant. “I don’t want to kick the bucket,” he said, before looking into the camera to declare. “If something happens to me Live … well … it’s my entire responsibility. But not now.”
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The controversy now surrounding a streaming channel that relatively few people had up until now heard of also concerns the responsibility of those who watch the sadistic content. In the past, this closeknit online “community” of the channel has been swift to react – sometimes aggressively – to its detractors. Just a few weeks before the publication of Mediapart’s first revelations, in December last year, supporters of the channel, who were informed of the imminent publication of the investigation, sent indignant and threatening messages to Mediapart’s editorial team.
After publication of the investigation, it was made the subject of mockery and questions about its veracity, becoming a regular feature on the live streams and on the different discussion groups dedicated to it.
On Tuesday of this week, on the channel’s “Discord” forum, the content of the messages was largely a mix of condolences and discussion over the responsibility or not of Graven’s fellow streamers, and also the viewers themselves.
Among the channel's viewers is Sylvain (not his real name), from the north of France, who said he first came across Graven as “Jean Pormanove” on YouTube in 2019. He subsequently followed him when he moved to Twitch and then Kick. “There, I watched him less, but when he began the recent challenges […] I wanted to be there, not to give donations but because it amused me,” he explained to Mediapart. Latterly, he said, he spent two or three hours a day on the channel, up until Graven’s death and its shutdown. “Things were left to go too far, and I feel guilty at having taken part in that,” he added.
Another viewer, who identified himself as a “shadow viewer”, told Mediapart that he regarded “JP” almost as “a brother”, and that he would have liked to have been able “to cross the screen to get him out of there” because he was aware of “the hold and manipulation” exerted upon him. But instead, he stayed on his own side of the computer, gleefully waiting for the frequent moments when Graven “flipped his lid” in revolt at the persecution inflicted upon him. “That’s where I found him the funniest,” he said.
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- This article is a compilation of extracts from Mediapart's extensive reporting in French on the Jeanpormanove channel and the death of Raphaël Graven on August 18th. Those reports can be found here, here, here, and here.
English version by Graham Tearse