Booba, Élie Yaffa, 48 years old, was placed in police custody on October 15, 2025 in Paris and then referred on the 16th in the investigation opened after the complaint by Gims and Demdem for moral harassment and cyberharassment (Booba–Gims case). Beyond the contested facts, the presumption of innocence obliges, the Booba–Gims case questions image strategies, power of networks, and responsibilities. A hearing is set for December 3, 2025 in a separate case: a judicial calendar that is accelerating.
Recent, dated, and sourced facts
Élie Yaffa, known as Booba, 48 years old, was placed in police custody on October 15, 2025, in Paris, then presented on October 16 to a magistrate with a view to a possible indictment in the investigation opened after the complaint by Gandhi Djuna, known as Gims, 39 years old, and Demdem for moral harassment and cyberharassment (Booba–Gims case). According to AFP and various media, the Brigade for the Suppression of Delinquency against Persons (BRDP) is now in charge of the investigation. The complaint was filed on August 26, 2024; the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on September 19, 2024. At this stage, Booba contests the alleged charges and benefits from the presumption of innocence.
Booba–Gims case: what the investigation will have to decide
At the heart of the procedure: publications on X, Instagram, and TikTok, public mockery, screenshots, and timestamps. The plaintiffs mention "repeated acts". Additionally, a "mob effect" is fueled by the audience of accounts. These accounts are followed by millions of subscribers. The track ‘Dolce Camara’ (2024) is cited as the culmination of the alleged acts of cyberharassment.
Three questions structure the investigation:
- Imputability: which messages originate directly from Booba? Which content comes from third parties?
- Repetition and intensity: do the frequency and audience characterize harassment in the legal sense?
- Causality: can certain publications be linked to coordinated waves of comments targeting Gims and Demdem?
Legally, the qualification will depend on the context. It could be harassment, aggravated cyberharassment, public insult, or defamation. Furthermore, the recurrence, the target, and the public scope of the messages influence this qualification. Digital evidence (account traceability, dating, possible deletions) will be decisive.
The legal framework: freedom of expression and penal limits
In France, moral harassment and cyberharassment are punished. Repeated acts that degrade a person’s living conditions are punishable. They can lead to prison sentences and fines. Additionally, aggravations are possible depending on age or vulnerability. Mob commission via networks is also an aggravating factor. In practice, magistrates evaluate two parameters: repetition and the objective impact on the targeted person, regardless of the artistic intentions claimed.
Recent chronology
- August 26, 2024: complaint by Gims and Demdem.
- September 19, 2024: investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office, BRDP seized.
- October 15, 2025: police custody of Booba.
- October 16, 2025: presentation to a magistrate with a view to an indictment.
- December 3, 2025: hearing scheduled in Paris in a separate case (discriminatory insults and cyberharassment targeting a journalist and an essayist).
Career, work, influence: a pillar shaped by confrontation
Booba spans three decades of French rap. From the beginnings with Lunatic to certified solo albums, he has built an aesthetic of confrontation: verbal jousting, ego-trip, assumed provocation. On the industrial level, he has structured around him an ecosystem: label 92i, platforms’ relays, brands, and partnerships. This architecture gives each statement a multiplied resonance.
In 2024, the album Ad vitam æternam marks a strong comeback on the musical level, with features from SDM and other affiliated artists. The song ‘Dolce Camara’ crystallizes the media tension, illustrating the ambivalence of writing that plays with the staging of conflict.
Media method: occupy the field, orchestrate the moment
Booba’s public device relies on three levers:
- Continuous presence on X and Instagram, where narratives, jabs, and counter-jabs are developed in real-time.
- Staging of rivalries, with a mastered use of teasers, excerpts, and memes.
- Accelerated temporality: turning a post into an event, a track into a sequence of confrontation that overflows the musical sphere.
This strategy polarizes: it unites one camp, irritates the other, and occupies the media space. It also presents a judicial risk as soon as irony and punchlines meet the protection of individuals.
Public psychology: role, mask, and mirror
In the media space, Booba often assumes a role: that of the swordsman who provokes to reveal the opponent’s flaws. This posture, inherited from rap codes, functions as a mask: it protects, exaggerates, distorts. It also responds to a public expectation: spectacularizing the competition.
But the image has real effects. When the staging meets identifiable people, fiction does not immunize against responsibility. The public character ends up overflowing the man, playing against him in the judicial space.
Why he disturbs
- Artistic: Booba claims an abrasive writing, a raw realism, an imagination of power that offends part of the public and seduces another.
- Media: his rhetoric masters the algorithms, it accelerates the circulation of polarizing content.
- Judicial: the boundary between freedom of creation and harm to individuals is tested by the scale of his audience.
- Societal: the Booba–Gims case acts as a test of our collective norms in the age of networks: what to do with a word amplified to infinity?
Judicial background and busy schedule (without amalgamation)
In a separate case, October 2023, Booba was indicted for aggravated moral harassment targeting Magali Berdah, then placed under judicial supervision. In December 2025, he is to be tried in Paris for discriminatory insults and cyberharassment in another case, involving notably a journalist. Each procedure follows its course and does not prejudge the others.
The role of platforms and fandoms
Around artists, communities play a role of resonator. Reposts, montages, hashtags: the amplification is often exogenous to the initial author. But the impulse given by a central figure can orient the flows. In the Booba–Gims case, the investigation will have to distinguish what is due to personal initiative and what is due to the autonomous dynamics of the networks.
Portrait in motion: the entrepreneur, the rapper, the character
Entrepreneur (brands, collaborations), artistic director (label 92i), rapper with multiple certifications: Booba combines roles. This polyactivity explains a rare influence on the mainstream. It also explains the expectation and disproportionate reactions to the slightest statement.
And now? Procedural follow-ups
Following the referral on October 16, 2025, several procedural scenarios are possible: indictment and continuation of the investigation, judicial supervision, or partial/total dismissal depending on the assessment of the elements. The hearing on December 3, 2025 in the other case will add to this calendar, without automatic nesting between the cases.
Whatever the outcome, this case acts as a mirror. It reflects a dynamic cultural ecosystem. In this ecosystem, image and word circulate at high speed. Moreover, justice reminds us of the line between creation and harm.