Andrew Tate: Who is the influencer arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges?
Brady Knox
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Emory Andrew Tate III, regularly known as Andrew Tate, who was arrested by Romanian police on suspected human trafficking charges, became known for his outlandish personality and misogynistic comments made on social media.
The 36-year-old former kickboxer has even been self-describing himself as a misogynist, according to the BBC. He shot to fame over the summer as social media flooded with clips showcasing some of his most inflammatory comments, some of which compared women to property. Before long, #andrewtate had 16.7 billion views on TikTok in videos decrying and praising his views. His social media personality generated much attention, but less notice was given to his background.
Tate was born in Washington, D.C., but later moved to the United Kingdom. He first gained fame as a professional lightweight kickboxer, achieving the first rank in his division in Europe by 2009, according to Luton Today. The article also reported that he maintained a day job “selling television and advertising” during his career. He retired from kickboxing in 2016, the Daily Mirror reported, claiming to have finished with 43 victories and nine defeats.
His first stint with controversy was in 2016, when he was cast out from the British version of Big Brother after a video emerged of him beating a woman. He says the encounter was consensual.
Tate became a social media personality soon after, mingling with right-wing figures in the United States and the United Kingdom, the Guardian reported. Around 2018, he moved from the U.K. to Romania with his brother, Tristan Tate, amid abuse allegations. Andrew Tate later said that “probably 40% of the reason” he went to Romania was that it was easier to avoid rape charges.
“I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free,” Tate said in a video.
The two quickly amassed a large fortune in Romania, most of which came from websites they ran. Lingerie-clad models would sell men, mostly in the U.S. and the U.K., “sob stories” to get them to hand over large swathes of cash, an investigation from the Daily Mirror found. Tate admitted that the entire operation was a “scam.”
“It’s a total scam. The model just has their hands on a keyboard that isn’t even plugged in. I have real professionals who are fluent in English behind the scenes getting men hooked, finding out their interests, the name of their dog,” he told the outlet.
His brother agreed that “it’s all a big scam,” but that he didn’t mind since “no one cares … it’s their problem not mine.”
Andrew Tate also runs Hustlers University, an online program that users pay to sign up for in order to get advice from him. He styles himself as a lifestyle coach.
Tate shot to newfound stardom in the summer of 2022, when TikTok and other social media outlets became saturated with videos of some of his most controversial comments. A report from the Guardian found that much of his sudden fame was due to his followers’ strategy of posting clips of his most inflammatory comments on outlets such as TikTok en masse, manipulating the algorithm to boost his content.
He was banned from Meta and Youtube in August for different reasons given by each organization, including dehumanizing rhetoric, violence, and hate speech. He was also banned from Twitter in 2017 after saying that women bore some responsibility for their sexual assault, but he was reinstated this year.
Tate has defended himself by saying that he is simply playing a character.
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The influencer said in a statement after his banning: “It is very unfortunate that old videos of me, where I was playing a comedic character, have been taken out of context and amplified to the point where people believe absolutely false narratives about me.”
He was arrested by Romanian police on Thursday for suspected human trafficking and rape charges. He was also detained in April for similar charges.