CONTRIBUTING WRITER – JORGE GUERRERO
ORIGINALLY PRINTED ON FEB 2, 2023
Only a few weeks ago, Andrew Tate was relaxing in his heavily fortified suburban compound in Bucharest, Romania. Today, he finds himself facing sexual assault and human trafficking charges in a cold and dark Romanian prison cell he describes, “with cockroaches, bed bugs, and lice as my only friends.”
A dramatic monologue for the self-proclaimed alpha male who once promised his male followers that he could teach them how to attract dozens of beautiful romantic partners each night. So how did the misogynistic influencer end up in Romanian jail? And how did he amass his popularity and wealth?
In 2012, him and his brother Tristan began their first adult webcam business, with lingerie-clad models who would engage in chat sessions with clients. On his website, he wrote that his job is to “meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say and get her on webcam so we could become rich together.” This page shut down in February 2022.
Four years later in 2016, Tate was invited to the 17th season of the reality TV show, Big Brother. Tate quickly sparked controversy after making numerous problematic statements; producers were promptly removed from the house after six days when a video surfaced of him hitting a female contestant with a belt. A year later, he moved to Bucharest with brother Tristian, acquiring a multi-million-dollar mansion reminiscent of a fortress. Tate claimed his move to Romania was due to the UK going downhill. However, in another statement by Tate, he stated the prospect of avoiding sexual assault charges was “probably 40 percent of the reason” for his move. While starting his new life in Romania, he regularly took to Twitter, spewing hateful rhetoric. He made outrageous posts claiming that “depression isn’t real” and that women should “bear some responsibility” for being sexually assaulted, referring to the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations. Shortly after commenting, his account received a ban from the platform. Unfortunately, this did not stop his activity on the platform as he promptly made a new account.
Fast forward to 2022, and his following on social media and within right-wing media grew on a massive scale. He was now averaging millions of interactions on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. After users from the social media platforms started a campaign to “de-platform the misogynist,” his accounts received bans on all social media websites in August. Tate did not take the bans lightly and posted a “final” video where he said the claims made against were due to clips taken out of context or chopped to make his statements sound bad. After claiming no responsibility for his actions, he added in his video, “I have some responsibility to bear. I still blame myself, because my rise has been so meteoric, and I became so famous so quickly.” That same month, the financial services company, Stripe, pulls out of processing subscriptions for Tate’s “Hustlers University,” another one of his business ventures. A few months later in November, the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, decided to reinstate Tate’s account. It is here where the beginning of the end starts and the red carpet to his jail cell rolls out.
A few days after Christmas, Tate decided to attack popular climate activist; Greta Thunberg, boasting about his luxury, oil-chugging,car collection and asking for her email address to send a complete list of his car collection. Greta Thunberg responded with a witty fake email to get back at him, which was essentially the last bit of snow needed to make the giant snowball of his spiraling career fall on him. He responded to Thunberg, posting video of himself wearing a robe, smoking a cigar and eating a pizza, claiming that her joke backfired on her. A day later, Romanian authorities tracked down and arrested Andrew, on suspicion of human trafficking, sexual assault and forming an organized crime group. Prosecutors say they have found six women who claim to have been sexually exploited by the suspects for the purpose of creating internet pornography. An investigation has reportedly been underway since April 2022.There is no saying how many young, easily impressionable men have consumed and adopted Tate’s sexist and misogynistic ideologies that he preaches.