Who is Andrew Tate? Florida launches new criminal investigation on influencer
Days after controversial influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in the US from Romania, Florida’s attorney general has launched a criminal investigation against them.
Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier said the state was “active” in its efforts to hold a preliminary investigation into the Tate brothers.
He said in a statement: “Based on a thorough review of the evidence, I’ve directed the Office Of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the now-active criminal investigation into the Tate brothers.”
Andrew Tate, 38, said that US police are “trying to find crimes on an innocent man”.
The brothers are dual US and UK nationals.
Andrew had threatened to launch his very own political party to take over the UK.
The online personality is facing a string of allegations relating to the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering, but has been freed by a court to leave his home after being under house arrest for five months, according to his spokesman.
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, right, are subject to an ongoing investigation into alleged people trafficking in Romania
AP
Both Tate brothers were accused in a recent Florida lawsuit of plotting to lure a woman to Romania, pressure her into sex labour, and defame her when she testified to Romanian police. In 2023, the Tate brothers filed a defamation lawsuit against her.
The release from house arrest had been granted “pending the outcome of a criminal investigation”, his spokesman has said.
But he is still facing charges, alongside brother Tristan, and is now “under judicial control”, meaning he was able to travel through Romania “while adhering to the required legal conditions”.
Both Tate brothers deny all the charges against them.
After these legal proceedings are complete, the brothers are set to be extradited to the UK, where they face additional allegations of rape and human trafficking that they also deny.
Here is all we know about Tate:
Andrew Tate with his brother Tristan
AP
Tate, 38, was born Emory Andrew Tate III on December 14, 1986. He is an American-British former professional kickboxer born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Luton.
He is the son of the late chess player Emory Tate, while his mother worked as a catering assistant.
Tate worked as a TV producer while training as a kickboxer, before transitioning to a professional fighting career.
His appearance on Big Brother in 2016 marked the start of his public notoriety. Since then, he has gained infamy for making offensive and misogynistic comments on social media, leading to widespread criticism and a controversial presence on TikTok.
Videos of Tate have garnered millions of views, prompting women’s charities to call for his removal from the platform.
Tate hit back with a video where he asked someone off-camera to bring him pizza, sparking theories that the Romanian pizza boxes allegedly informed authorities of Tate’s whereabouts.
But how did he get to this point?
Why was Andrew Tate banned from Meta’s Instagram and Facebook?
Meta banned Andrew Tate from Instagram and Facebook in August 2022.
Meta said that it removed Tate from its platforms for “violating its policies on dangerous organisations and individuals”, but did not provide further details, the BBC reported.
Responding to news of Mr Tate’s ban from Facebook and Instagram, Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate, said: “Tate poses a genuine threat to young men, radicalising them towards extremism misogyny, racism and homophobia.”
A TikTok spokesman said: “Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok. We’ve been removing violative videos and accounts for weeks, and we welcome the news that other platforms are also taking action against this individual.”
Big Brother appearance and removal
Tate later said that the actions in the video were consensual and that he was still friends with the woman.
But Big Brother viewers had already called for him to be removed from the house after his offensive tweets resurfaced.
He allegedly wrote abusive tweets about Girls Aloud singer Cheryl and was accused of being homophobic and racist.
Andrew Tate was removed from Big Brother after a week.
© Channel 5
Comments on depression and backlash
In September 2017, Tate attracted a backlash on Twitter after his comments on depression.
In a tweet, he said: “Depression isn’t real. You feel sad, you move on. You will always be depressed if your life is depressing. Change it.”
Even Harry Potter author JK Rowling responded, by sharing his tweets and saying: “This thread will teach you a lot about the defence mechanism of projection, but zero about the real mental illness that is depression.”
Andrew Tate’s controversial comments on sexual assault
On Twitter, he said: “If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must [bear] some responsibility. I’m not saying it’s OK you got raped.
“No woman should be abused regardless. However, with sexual assault, they want to put zero blame on the victim whatsoever.”
He added: “A man looking at you or whistling at you or asking your name isn’t harassment.
“This belief does discredit as a whole. Stick to the serious definitions and stop pretending normal male behaviour is rape.”
Tate also said: “Women have been exchanging sex for opportunity for a very long time. Some did this. Weren’t abused.”
TikTok fame and Hustler’s University
More recently, Tate has gone viral on TikTok for his controversial comments. However, his growth on the social media platform is not totally organic.
Tate founded an online learning platform called Hustler’s University. This sees him charge his followers £36 a month to access courses about how to make money.
The website also sells specific programs for thousands of pounds–that supposedly teach subscribers how to get rich.
His subscribers can also earn money by selling a membership to someone else, similar to a multi-level marketing scheme.
The Guardian reported that thousands of Tate’s Hustler’s University members flooded TikTok with videos of him in a “blatant attempt to manipulate the algorithm” and “artificially boost his content”.
Now, TikTok feeds are flooded with videos of Tate making offensive statements, mostly about women.
What has Andrew Tate said about women?
As well as his offensive comments about sexual assault, Tate has also said that women “belong in the home” and are a “man’s property”.
He has said that if a man sleeps with a woman while he has a girlfriend he loves, it doesn’t count as cheating. However, if his girlfriend spoke to another man, he would consider it cheating.
Tate said a man shouldn’t let a woman go to a restaurant or nightclub with her friends if he isn’t there too, and that she should stay at home instead.
He has also said that “probably 40 per cent of the reason” he moved to Romania was because it was easier to evade rape charges.
He added: “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free.”
