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The effect of laser irradiation on chemically vapor deposited (CVD) graphene was studied by analyzing the temporal evolution of Raman spectra acquired under various illumination conditions. The spectra showed that the normalized intensity of the defect-related peak increases with the square root of the exposure time and varies almost linearly with the laser power density. Furthermore, the hardness of graphene to radiation damage depends on its intrinsic structural quality. The results suggest that, contrary to the common belief, micro-Raman spectroscopy cannot be considered a noninvasive tool for the characterization of graphene. The experimental observations are compatible with a model that we derived from the interpretative approach of the Staebler–Wronski effect in hydrogenated amorphous silicon; this approach assumes that the recombination of photoexcited carriers induces the breaking of weak C–C bonds.