Vlogger Dies After Ex-Husband Doused Her In Petrol And Set Fire To Her During Livestream

Editor's Note: This story has been edited to reflect a change about the video-sharing platform.

According to reports, the 30-year-old rural livestreamer died after her ex-husband allegedly doused her in petrol and set fire to her while she attempting to livestream on 14 September.

The woman, named Lamu, had more than 885,000 followers on Douyin, a hugely popular platform for short videos among millions of netizens in China.

She regularly posted videos of her daily life foraging in the mountains, cooking, and lipsyncing to songs dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing, according to a report in South China Morning Post.

She was known for her happy posts on rural life and was praised for not using makeup in her videos.

Lamu was doused in petrol and set alight at home by her ex-husband, surnamed Tang, on 14 September. Three days later, she was transferred to Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital for treatment.

A statement from Jinchuan County Public Security Bureau said that she suffered burns on 90% of her body.

Her family asked her followers for financial help and more than one million yuan (RM613,000) was raised in just 24 hours, according to a BBC report. Lamu, however, could not be saved and died on 30 September.

Tang, who reportedly has a history of domestic violence, used to often beat Lamu.

In May this year, she divorced Tang after being married to him for over a decade. The couple, who had two children together, each gained custody of the children, aged 12 and three.

Not long after the divorce, Tang threatened to kill their youngest child if Lamu did not re-marry him.

Forced to save her child's life, while Lamu accepted his condition at first, she couldn't continue to face the violence and ran away from him, according to a report in Chongqing Morning Post.

While her family members reported him to the police, they allegedly took no action at the time.

Lamu divorced him again but he gained custody of both children. Following which, he broke into her house armed with a knife and petrol on 14 September to seek revenge for the divorce.

According to the statement from Jinchuan County Public Security Bureau, Tang was detained on 14 September on suspicion of "intentional homicide" and a team is continuing to investigate.

Tens of thousands of them have left comments on her Douyin page while Weibo users are using the trending hashtags, which often gets censored, to make her case get the nationwide attention.

"Remove the 'internet celebrity' label, she is just an ordinary woman who unfortunately suffered domestic violence and was abused and threatened," read a comment with more than 28,000 likes.

When China's Domestic Violence Law was passed it 2016, it was celebrated as a victory for women's rights. However, four years later, its shortcomings are evident as the law continues to fail the victims.

Earlier in June this year, a local court turned down a woman's request to divorce her abusive husband, who beat her so brutally that she had to jump from a second-storey window to save her life.

This despite the fact that she had provided CCTV footage of the assault as proof to the court.

Paralysed and still fearing for her life, the woman then uploaded the video on to social media, where it created a nationwide public outcry, forcing the court to later granted her divorce.