Malek Bennouioua

On the evening of Saturday 26 September 2026, police in Aix-en-Provence were alerted after Malek's ex-partner reported messages suggesting he intended to take his own life. He was barricaded in his Saint-Jérôme apartment. RAID officers and a negotiator arrived late that night. French regional press reported that negotiations failed to establish constructive dialogue and that he suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Firefighters treated him in a desperate condition; he died in hospital around 4 a.m. on Sunday 27 September. An investigation was opened. HLTV reported that the cause of death had not been made public. A statement from his X account asked people not to relay rumors or speculation and to respect his family's privacy. The Fédération Française de Jeu Vidéo confirmed the death on 28 September. France's national suicide-prevention line 3114 is free and available 24/7.

Malek Bennouioua was born in September 1991 in France. Public biographies do not publish an exact birth day or a confirmed hometown of birth. Reporting after his death placed his schooling in the same orbit as Marseille rapper JuL, who later called Malek a former classmate in an Instagram story. He entered adulthood as Counter-Strike: Source and then Counter-Strike: Global Offensive reshaped online competitive play in France, and that scene became the frame for most of his public life.

Detailed school and university records have not been published. The only widely reported education detail is that he shared a classroom past with JuL. His later public teaching style (patient demos, weekly news, tactical breakdowns) suggests a self-taught competitive education forged in client servers, LANs, and VODs rather than a formal esports academy path.

maleK began competing seriously on Counter-Strike: Source around 2011 and became a familiar in-game leader in the French CS:GO sub-top. HLTV and Liquipedia record roster time with beGenius ESC (March - July 2015), later ex-beGenius, Platinium, Red Instinct RS, and Epsilon France (2017), where teammates included Audric "JACKZ" Jug. Community and press notes also mention earlier structures such as webSPELL Gaming. He collected domestic LAN placings rather than international majors; French coverage after his death highlighted a DreamHack Tours podium in 2018 among other national events (ESL Championnat National, EPSILAN). He stepped back from full-time competition in the late 2010s as content creation took over.

After retiring from the highest level of play, Bennouioua built one of the most followed French Counter-Strike creator brands. His YouTube channel published tutorials, match analysis, cheat and patch news, and long-running "actu" roundups under the MALEKCSGOTV banner. Twitch streams (malek_csgo) mixed ranked play, coaching energy, and community talk. HLTV later cited roughly 130,000 YouTube subscribers and 155,000 Twitch followers. He maintained Instagram (@malek_csgo), X (@malekCSGO), Discord, and the site malekcsgo.fr. In recent months before his death he costreamed Tier-1 events when rights holders such as KRL allowed it, and he met peers at the Esports World Cup in Paris.

Public reporting described Malek as a father of two. Children's names were not released. Coverage of his final night referred to an ex-partner who contacted police after alarming messages. He lived in the Saint-Jérôme district of Aix-en-Provence. Peers repeatedly stressed the human side behind the handle: shox recalled twenty years of shared history and a meal together a year earlier; Ozstrik3r wrote that the only thing that mattered was that Malek was gone and left two children behind.

Bennouioua did not publish a formal political platform. Friends' memorial posts used Muslim funeral phrasing and asked for dua, reflecting the community around him. On camera and in streams he argued for better fundamentals, less toxicity, and taking the game seriously without losing sight of the person on the other side of the server. After his death, peers used their platforms to urge anyone struggling not to stay alone, echoing a line widely shared from shox's tribute.

His lasting mark is pedagogical. A generation of French players told HLTV and social media that maleK's tutorials were how they learned defaults, utility, and review habits. neL called him one of the pillars of the French CS scene across many years. Even people who had argued with him publicly, including KRL, described recent reconciliation and gratitude for costream access. The FFJV framed him as a figure of the French community. His archive of videos remains a living classroom.

He did not win a Counter-Strike Major. Recognition came instead through domestic LAN results, long service as a French IGL, YouTube's Silver Creator Award after reaching 100,000 subscribers (celebrated around January 2021), and the scale of his Twitch and YouTube audiences. Posthumous recognition arrived through FFJV condolences and tributes from Vitality's apEX, shox, Ozstrik3r, Neityu, and others.

French and international esports media covered his career and death: HLTV, Insider Gaming, e.sport.fr, 20 Minutes, Le Dauphiné, Programme-tv, Public, and others. He appeared in creator interviews, including a 2022 conversation with Zack Nani about his pro path. JuL's Instagram story briefly linked him to Marseille popular culture beyond esports. He should not be confused with coach Damien "maLeK" Marcel, a different person with a similar tag.