Last Friday, Poupette Kenza climbed the legendary steps of the Cannes Film Festival in an extravagant yellow dress. Symbol of success for this young mother of 22 years? The rise to popularity of the Rouen influencer – she is the most followed Frenchwoman on Snapchat -, who cheerfully and unfiltered her daily life on social networks, also comes with its share of pitfalls.
The young woman has been since Wednesday accused of disseminating images of her children akin to child ography by two Renaissance MPs: Sarah Tanzilli (Rhône) and Bruno Studer (Bas-Rhin), who sent a letter to the Rouen prosecutor. Requested several times since Friday, the latter did not answer our questions as to the possible consequences of this letter.
Following the broadcast by the influencer #PoupetteKenza images of her children looking like #child ographyI seized with my colleague Bruno Studer the prosecutor of Rouen.
A mother can never exhibit her child like this. Faced with this, we must be intractable. pic.twitter.com/vNW1GbXVOM
— Sarah Tanzilli (@sarah_tanzilli) May 17, 2023
Criminal proceedings for acts of ill-treatment
Again in turmoil, Poupette Kenza is a regular in controversy. On February 17, Kenza Benchrif – her real name – was taken into custody (then released) on suspicion of child neglect following the suspicious hospitalization of her less than a year old son, which she had told her subscribers. At the time, the young woman was quickly the target of a flood of accusations on social networks relating to the way in which she raises and exposes her two children, aged one and two. The media 76news then revealed that several reports had been made against her “by people who follow her”.
Poupette Kenza had reacted in the program “Do not touch my post”, denying the accusations against her: “I have been locked in my room for several days, I no longer watch the networks or what is happening around me. I am accused of such dramatic things… As a caring and loving mother, I am not a perfect mother. I am a mother who has made mistakes but I have never had any abuse of my children, I have had no apparent neglect of my children, ”she said.
Unskillful product placements
The new Snapchat star derives her comfortable income from product placements and other partnerships with various brands. UV sessions harmful to the skin, questionable product placements or even the publication of images in which she crushes the hand of her child while trying on outfits: her commercial practices regularly arouse the opprobrium of many observers on the Web.
In particular, she found herself on several occasions in the line of sight of rapper Booba, who has declared war on those he calls “influencers”. During a space on Twitter in February, the forty-something pleaded for the suspension of the influencer’s account. “When a person is denounced over and over again for child abuse, it’s up to social networks to close the account and not open it, that’s all,” he said.
A “filterless” lifestyle criticized
With more than a hundred videos posted per day, Poupette Kenza reveals the smallest aspects of her family’s daily life. The Rouennaise boasts of its authenticity, its total transparency and the lack of staging of its publications. Every day, in front of the camera of her phone, she displays her life as a model mother: preparing the meal, revealing the consequences of her motherhood or even… peeling potatoes, her baby on her shoulder.
This claimed way of life is not without risk: the young woman is the victim of online harment, some accusing her of her pretense, her negligence when it comes to taking care of her children and the commercial interest who, according to them, is hiding behind the declarations of love to her “poupettes” (the nickname she gives to her subscribers, mostly women).
In mid-January, the influencer was thus banned from Snapchat, after her profile was repeatedly reported to moderators by several users of the platform, who notably disputed the overexposure of her children Seyana and Khalis.
In response, the influencer became more active on Instagram and, at the same time, opened a TikTok profile on which her number of subscribers soared (nearly 800,000 in ten days). “A pion, a community, a job, a way of life, a routine, habits, moments, memories,” she wrote of the suspension of her Snapchat account, which has since been reinstated.