Inside the vile misogynistic world of Andrew Tate as ex Big Brother contestant is arrested for sex trafficking
HE boasts billions of views on TikTok, an army of slavish followers and is the third most Googled person of 2022, beaten only by the Queen and Donald Trump.
But you may never have heard of Andrew Tate until this week — when he was arrested in Romania on sex trafficking charges.
The police swoop followed Tate’s bizarre Twitter row with climate change activist Greta Thunberg.
The British influencer and one-time Big Brother contestant — dubbed the King of Toxic Masculinity — was arrested during a raid on his mansion in the Bucharest suburb of Pipera alongside brother Tristan, 34.
After being kicked off Big Brother in 2016 over a clip that showed him hitting a woman with a belt, Tate has made millions spreading hateful misogynistic views on social media.
He has variously been banned from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for his hate-filled diatribes, which include his oft-repeated view that women “bear some responsibility” for being raped.
READ MORE ON Andrew Tate
Now prosecutors say Tate and his brother are suspects in an alleged organised crime ring that sexually exploited at least six women, who were housed and forced into performing in online porn videos.
The pair are accused of enslaving Romanian and Moldovan women in order to make sex films as well as trafficking women to the UK and US for wealthy clients.
Greta’s sassy tweet got 237million likes
The police statement said two British suspects trapped their victims by using the “loverboy technique” — falsely professing their love and intention to marry them.
The women were then transported to buildings on the outskirts of Bucharest where “physical violence and mental coercion” including “intimidation, control and constant surveillance” was used to force them to perform sex acts on camera.
The warrant stated: “With regard to the crime of rape, it was noted that, in March 2022, an injured person was forced, on two different occasions, by a suspect through the exercise of physical violence and psychological pressure to have sexual relations.”
During the operation by the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), two women who allegedly work for the Tate brothers, including a former police woman, were also detained.
Following the raids, police seized 11 luxury cars, two gas pistols, and several machetes from the brothers’ house in Pipera.
Tate — born in the US but raised in Luton — has lived in Romania since 2017 and once boasted that “40 per cent” of the reason he chose the country was because police were less likely to investigate sexual assault.
But sources told The Sun that prosecutors were waiting for the two men to return to the country after Christmas breaks in London.
Tristan returned by private jet on December 22 and Andrew followed five days later.
Ironically, it initially appeared to be Tate’s baiting of campaigner Greta Thunberg that alerted the authorities to his whereabouts.
The row started when he tweeted a picture of himself standing next to a Bugatti and saying he owned 33 cars.
“Please provide your email address so I can send a list of my car collection and their enormous emissions,” he tweeted, tagging Thunberg.
The Swedish campaigner replied: “Yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com.”
Her sassy tweet got 237million likes, catapulting it into the top 10 most-liked tweets in history.
When Tate responded with a video, ordering someone offscreen to bring him pizza “and make sure the boxes aren’t recycled” he may have signed his own warrant.
The box delivered bore the company name Jerry’s Pizza — pinpointing his location in Bucharest, fuelling speculation it sparked the raid.
Thunberg followed up with the tweet: “This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes” — although cops have since denied this helped them track the men down.
Tate has been under investigation since April when his mansion was raided after a tip-off that a 21-year-old American woman was being held against her will.
Several women, including the US citizen, were found at the video studio half a mile away from the villa.
The American woman told police she had met Tristan Tate through a social media network and he convinced her to come to Romania.
After being forced to work on a video live stream, she managed to contact her ex-boyfriend who raised the alarm with the US embassy.
The brothers were questioned for several hours but released as DIICOT undertook a painstaking eight-month investigation.
Former kickboxer Tate once claimed to be a trillionaire, and a quick glance at his Instagram reveals how much he loves flaunting his supposed wealth, with sharp suits, £1million watches and supercars, including Bugattis and Rolls-Royces, featured.
He portrays himself as a cigar-smoking playboy, with video clips shot on yachts and private jets.
Inside the palatial home, where CCTV covers every room except the bathroom, the decor is plush, with glass cabinets for his array of weapons.
He recently claimed he had the site designated as a shooting range so that the security guards who patrol the outskirts could legally carry guns.
Tate provocatively claims to only date 18 or 19-year -olds because they have had fewer sexual partners.
And while women are notably absent from Tate’s feed, a photo shared on his brother’s Instagram in September showed Tristan surrounded by eight very young, scantily clad women, with Andrew’s arm, identified by his snake tattoo, visible.
So where did the self-styled misogynist, who grew up on a Luton council estate, make his millions?
“My father was in the air force. He was away for long periods of time. And he was away at chess tournaments for long periods of time,” he told The Times in September.
“He’d come home and say, ‘Look, your mother has to do the day-to-day stuff. I’m a man. I have to make sure you’re protected.’ And we’d sit and we’d play chess.”
When the couple split, mum Eileen moved the family to Luton, described by Tate as the “worst town in the UK”.
An accomplished chess player from five, his standard never reached that required for the competitive circuit, so he turned to kickboxing, becoming a four-time world champion.
Cast in Big Brother in 2016, he was ejected after a video emerged of him attacking a woman.
A second clip showed him telling a woman to count the bruises he had apparently caused her.
Both Tate and the women denied abuse, saying the clips showed consensual sex, with Tate claiming he had been “kink-shamed”.
Homophobic and racial language was found on social media and in 2017 he was criticised by mental health charities for saying depression “isn’t real”.
His dad’s outlook may have led to Tate’s view that women should “have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee” but he has gone way beyond the bounds of casual sexism, with one domestic abuse charity calling it extreme misogyny capable of radicalising men and boys to commit harm.
‘I’m a trillionaire – world’s first’
In 2017, he attacked the #MeToo movement against sexual violence, saying women should “bear some responsibility” for being raped.
Barred from Twitter, fame-hungry Tate posted rants on Facebook, appeared in Infowars, the podcast of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and posed with Nigel Farage and far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
He also met Donald Trump, posting on Facebook afterwards: “The Tate family support Trump FULLY. MAGA!”
The rise of TikTok gave Tate a new platform, where he encouraged fans to flood the internet with his most controversial clips, racking up more than 13 billion views so far.
In one video, describing how he’d react if a woman accused him of cheating, he makes violent threats.
In another he calls an ex-girlfriend who accused him of hitting her — an allegation he denies — a “dumb hoe”.
Together with Tristan he moved into porn, setting up a webcam business where women perform sex acts on camera for money.
He claims the performers kept 80 to 85 per cent of the fees earned and that “most of the girls ended up being multimillionaires”.
In recent years he has styled himself as a self-help guru, offering to pull followers out of poverty.
In language similar to that used by the misogynistic Incel movement, he says the key is “escaping the matrix” and “taking the red pill” — meaning opting out of normal society.
He encouraged his mostly male fans to subscribe to his Hustler’s University community, signing up 127,000 members who pay £39 a month to hear his “get rich quick” tips.
Some have described it as a pyramid scheme — claims he slams as “false”.
His tips include the perfect balance to ensure you rack up the maximum followers on TikTok, saying: “What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70 per cent fans and 30-40 per cent haters. You want arguments, you want war.”
Although his net worth is estimated at around £41million, Tate has made claims that he is worth far more.
He said: “I don’t want to brag, but I’m a trillionaire, world’s first.
“I was broke for a long time. I made my first million when I was, say, 27 and then I had 100 million by the time I was 31, and then I became a trillionaire quite recently.”
While he monetises his misogyny, mum Eileen Tate is still thought to be living in the £275,000 council house in Luton where she raised her kids.
His younger sister Janine has reportedly cut ties with him.
After police swooped on their home, at 7am yesterday morning, a spokesperson for the brothers said: “Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can.”
It is understood the brothers will deny the sex trafficking allegations.
Tate has recently been allowed back onto Twitter and now boasts 3.8million followers, with many hero-worshipping him for his extreme views.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Last night, following his arrest, that number was still going up - a disturbing indication of the wide influence of this woman-hater.
Yesterday Romanian prosecutors asked a Bucharest court to extend Tate’s detention by 30 days.