The host of the channel “Norman makes videos” was taken into custody on Monday as part of a preliminary investigation entrusted to the Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM), opened in January 2022. Six young women have filed a complaint against the youtuber.
According to the newspaper Liberation, five of them would accuse Norman Thavaud of rape and two were minors at the time of the facts.
In 2020, a Quebec fan, Maggie D., publicly accused Norman Thavaud of having manipulated her to obtain sexual photos and videos, when she was, according to her, 16 years old at that time. She said she had filed a complaint in Canada.
As part of a Quebec-French investigation published by the Urbania media in April 2021, other women had made similar accusations against the youtuber for facts that allegedly occurred when some were still minors.
Questioned by AFP, Maggie D. confirmed to be in France to be confronted this Tuesday with Norman Thavaud before the investigators, as indicated by Liberation.
Norman, the third French YouTuber in terms of number of subscribers, is a veteran, having made his debut in 2011 on the platform. His videos, according to an official tally, have been viewed more than 2.7 billion times.
Flag bearer of a new generation of comedians born on social networks, this editor by training became known in the early 2010s with sequences inspired by his daily life (“Avoir un chat”, “Les toilets” ) or video games (“Luigi clash Mario”).
Passionate about stand-up, he took to the stage for two solo shows between 2015 and 2020, in addition to a few appearances in cinema (“Mon roi”) and on television (“Dix pour cent”).
In 2018, the number one French YouTuber, Squeezie (17.6 million subscribers) denounced on Twitter “YouTubers (including those who shout from the rooftops that they are feminists) who take advantage of the psychological vulnerability of young people subscribers to get sex”.
His tweet had been widely redistributed as part of the #balancetonyoutubeur movement. Some testimonies had targeted Norman.