A French teen was fined $465 in Singapore after a viral video showed him licking a vending machine straw and putting it back.
A viral social media prank ended in court when a nineteen-year-old French student was ordered to pay a financial penalty after staging a health-code stunt inside a public shopping center. The incident, which quickly ignited public outrage across digital platforms, saw the young man record himself deliberately contaminating a drink straw before returning it to a communal dispenser. The viral stunt drew widespread backlash in a nation globally recognized for enforcing strict public order and zero-tolerance hygiene standards.
The legal resolution took place at the State Courts of Singapore on Thursday, July 30, 2026. District Judge Kelly Ho handed down a sentence requiring Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien to pay a fine of S$600, equivalent to roughly $465 in U.S. dollars, after the teenager formally pleaded guilty to a single charge of being a public nuisance. State prosecutors agreed with defense counsel that a monetary fine was the most appropriate outcome, opting against probation or community service so that Maximilien could return home to France later this fall to continue his higher education.
The disruptive sequence of events began on March 12, 2026, when Maximilien finished an afternoon boxing training session at the Goldhill Centre on Thomson Road. Approaching an automated iJooz vending machine to buy fresh orange juice, he pulled out a paper straw from the shared dispenser, licked roughly half of its surface while filming on his phone, and inserted the unhygienic straw back into the machine’s storage holder. Although Maximilien pulled the same straw out seconds later to consume his own drink after the camera stopped rolling, he edited the video clip to make it appear as though the dirty straw was left behind for an unsuspecting customer to use.
The teenager then posted the edited clip to his private Instagram account, but the footage was screen-recorded by someone in his online network and forwarded to local news outlets, triggering massive viral distribution and public disgust. After company management saw the viral video online, an assistant operations manager filed an official police report on March 25, prompting law enforcement to open a criminal investigation. Out of an abundance of caution, the vending machine company replaced all 500 straws inside the dispenser to safeguard public health and restore customer confidence.
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Court proceedings revealed that the prank was driven by a foolish desire to create attention-grabbing social media content without foreseeing the real-world consequences. During the hearing, state prosecutors noted that while hygiene protocols were compromised and the company suffered financial loss replacing inventory, no member of the public was actually harmed because Maximilien ultimately took the straw with him. Maximilien expressed deep remorse through his attorney, acknowledging that what began as a foolish joke resulted in severe legal trouble and family embarrassment. With the trial concluded, Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority will determine whether any further action will be taken regarding his student residence pass.
