Sports cars, a pizza box, Greta Thunberg, Romania, sex-trafficking and a highly controversial internet celebrity. If you’ve heard someone talking about any of these things this week, chances are you also wanted to ask them: Who, exactly, is Andrew Tate?
The man at the center of it all has long been a magnet for such a question. He’s been described as the “King of Toxic Masculinity,” one ofthe “internet’s most controversial figures” and “the Top G.”
And in the latest news, Reuters and Romanian media outlets say he’s been arrested on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming an organized crime group.
Let’s dig into it.
Tate, a British citizen born in the U.S., first became an international name through his career as a kickboxer, winning several world titles.
In 2016, he tried his hand at reality TV, but was kicked off the British version of Big Brother over a video of him hitting a woman with a belt. Tate said the video was a “total lie” that had been edited to make him look bad.
On social media, Tate became a vocal supporter of former President Trump and was spotted around Washington, D.C., with prominent conspiracy theorists and on right-wing talk shows like Infowars.
After styling himself as a self-help influencer for men, he was banned from Twitter in 2017 for saying women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted. His Twitter account was reinstated this November after Elon Musk took ownership of the platform.
At various points, Tate has been banned from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for similarly misogynistic remarks.
Tate has said women belong in the home, shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car and are man’s property. He’s said he prefers to date 18- and 19-year-old womenbecause they’re more impressionable.
These days, Tate claims to be making millions and peddling his life philosophy to thousands through an online course and community called “Hustlers University.”
For $49 a month, anyone canearn thousands per month through skills like copywriting and buying NFTs plus recruiting others to the community for a commission fee. An ad for the course claims that Hustlers University has over 168,000 active students, some as young as 13.
