(Paris) “He soiled everything that I am”: the former “queen of influencers” Magali Berdah strongly questioned the rapper Booba on Monday before the Paris criminal court, where 13 people are being tried for having taken part of the massive cyberharassment of which she was a victim.
During a tense hearing, Ms. Berdah, her voice sometimes broken by sobs, recounted the ordeal she suffered from May 2022 when she was overwhelmed on social networks with tens of thousands of insulting messages and death threats. “I almost threw myself out of the window,” she said.
“Die”, “dirty bitch”, “scammer”, “you deserve to be decapitated and stoned”… Thirteen Internet users will appear until December 5 for their alleged participation in this “pack” harassment.
Only six of them appeared in court on Monday, a point Ms Berdah lamented. “I wish these people would realize what they did,” she observed.
In total, this procedure concerns 28 defendants, 15 of whom must be tried for similar facts during two subsequent trials, in mid-December and then at the end of January.
Among the Internet users implicated, some are being prosecuted for having sent more than 70 hateful or offensive messages, others just one.
The shadow of a 29th defendant, who is not concerned by this trial, hovered over a significant part of the debates: that of the rapper Booba, who launched in 2022 a crusade against Ms. Berdah and those whom he calls “influvoleurs” and accuses of multiple scams against Internet users.
Booba, whose real name is Elie Yaffa, was indicted at the beginning of October in this case, and placed under judicial supervision, for aggravated online moral harassment.
Investigations concerning him continue.
Ms. Berdah, 42, commercial director of the influencer agency Shauna Events, was accused by Booba of deceptive commercial practices. Reproaches which fueled a broader debate on the influencer sector, for which Parliament voted for regulation in June.
In this debate, “I was credited with all the scams in the whole world”, “I was made to pass for a monster”, lamented Ms. Berdah in court, who described at length the role that, according to she Booba in the flood of insults and threats she received.
“One day he relayed a link to a Telegram group where people were calling for me to be beheaded and burned alive, with my address,” she said. “I would have preferred for him to beat me up once and for me to be quiet” rather than to suffer such an outpouring of hatred “every day”.
Ms. Berdah explained that she had to move twice, that her eldest daughter had been out of school, and that she had felt particularly alone during the ordeal.
“No one wanted to hear me anymore, I was no longer audible. I’ve lost three quarters of my friends, because as soon as they appear with me, they’re harassed.