In recent years, Andrew Tate, 37-year-old British-American influencer and so-called “king of toxic masculinity,” has gained an extensive online following by marketing his controversial but alluring brand to young men and boys wrestling with their own ideas of masculinity. However appealing this “brand” may be, beyond the luxury cars, private jets, and flashy lifestyle, Tate’s “brand” is built on overt misogyny, unapologetic violence against women, and the idea that men are victims of feminism.
Tate was a four-time kickboxing world champion, but first rose to fame in 2016 when he appeared on the British version of Big Brother. His feature on the program was short-lived, however, as he was removed six days in after a video that appeared to show him attacking a woman emerged. Tate denied these allegations, instead claiming the video showed him engaging in consensual sex with the woman.
Despite these allegations, Tate quickly became one of the most famous people in the world, with more Google searches for him in July 2022 than Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian. Tate’s fame is largely credited to his social media presence, which emphasizes “antagonistic masculinity” and “lavish displays of wealth.” In a matter of months, the internet and social media sites were flooded with controversial video clips of him promoting misogynist ideologies and his online “academy,” Hustler’s University, where he offers courses discussing get-rich-quick schemes.
One of Tate’s previously offered courses, the “PhD Program” or “Pimping Hoes Degree,” consisted of videos teaching men how to seduce and monetize women by coercing them into working as webcam models. In one video, Tate refers to the “PhD” course as “my recruitment system,” and explains that it is “impossible to have a woman work for you without having sex with her.”
Tate perpetuates the ideas that women are responsible if they are raped and that they “belong” to men in marriage. In one interview, titled “My Life as a Pimp – Andrew Tate Tells His Life Story,” Tate unequivocally admits that he is “absolutely a misogynist,” adding, “I’m a realist, and when you’re a realist, you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.” In that same interview, he describes women as “intrinsically lazy” and says there is “no such thing as an independent female.”
Much of this overtly misogynistic content violates the policies of online platforms. This has resulted in Tate’s removal from several platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Prior to his removal, he had about 4.6 million followers on Instagram, more than 740,000 followers on YouTube, and millions of views on his TikTok videos.
Despite his removal, clips of Tate still circulate the internet with alarming frequency, many of which are posted and reposted by his devoted acolytes and fans. As of January 2025, Tate’s sole social media presence exists on X under the name @Cobratate, an homage to his former kickboxing nickname, “King Cobra,” where he boasts over 10 million followers.
Tate maintains this strong following despite mounting accusations of rape, human trafficking, and organized crime in several countries.
In one case, filed in June 2023, prosecutors in Romania indicted Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, accusing them and two Romanian women of forming an organized criminal group in 2021 and trafficking women across Romania, Britain, and the United States. Additionally, Andrew Tate was charged with rape.
According to court documents, investigators identified seven women who said that the brothers misled them into believing they wanted a relationship with them. The brothers transported the women to Romania, where the Tate brothers currently live, under the guise that they were in a relationship and going to get married, a fraudulent tactic that prosecutors refer to as the “loverboy method.” Instead, the women were housed in a compound near Bucharest and forced to appear in pornographic videos that were shared online as part of the brothers’ webcam business on OnlyFans and TikTok. Tate describes himself as a “self-made multi-millionaire” and said he earned his fortune through “a little webcam business from my apartment.” When describing this “little” business, Tate said he had 75 women working in four locations at the “peak of it all.”
In a now-deleted page on his website, Tate said, “My job was 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 then get her on webcam so we could become rich together.”
In the “My Life as a Pimp” interview, Andrew Tate further described the details of his “cam empire.” When asked how he ended up getting “75 girls to work for [him],” he started by defending “pimping,” saying “when people hear this story and they say like a pimp et cetera, people imagine me to be this exploitive horrible evil man, which is absolutely and utterly the complete opposite.” He went on to describe how he “messaged [his] six girlfriends and told them they’re all coming to live with [him] and [he] had a job for them in London. Two of them wouldn’t come, four of them agreed. […] So the four girls flew in, [he] sat them all down at a table, they’re all like ‘who’s this chick? who’s this chick?’ [Tate] told them all the truth— [he] just straight sat there and said ‘listen, I’ve been with you all, I’m starting a webcam business, I’m going to get rich, some of you either going to come with me to the top of the mountain or if you’re pissed off you can f***ing fly home…”
This tactic is commonly referred to as “Romeo pimping.” A Romeo pimp tricks vulnerable women into commercial sex by luring them into what they believe to be romantic relationships, only to exploit and control them. Seducing their victims with not just love, but also a lifestyle, Romeo pimps often target women who are awed by their image and what they represent. This intentional building of a fraudulent, coercive relationship has long been recognized as a common method of recruitment into trafficking.
Even Andrew Tate himself appeared to understand this method as an effective way to coerce women into the sex trade. In the “My Life as a Pimp” interview, he explained, “when I started [the cam business], the girls worked for me ‘cause they loved me…that’s the old school pimp game, isn’t it?”
In December 2024, a Romanian Court ruled that the case cannot go to trial as is due to legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecution. The case has not been closed, however. The court returned the case to the prosecution, who now have an opportunity to amend their case and bring forth additional evidence to support the charges. This decision follows a November 2024 ruling in which the court ordered some evidence removed, including witness statements by two alleged victims and statements by the Tate brothers.
In a separate case, Romanian prosecutors are also currently investigating the brothers for additional accusations, including sex with minors and trafficking underage persons. In total, these allegations involve a total of 35 alleged victims.
In yet another separate case, the Tate brothers were taken into custody in Romania on a new European arrest warrant issued by the British authorities in March 2024. The alleged underlying conduct related to the arrest was made between 2012 and 2015, and include accusations of sexual aggression. Andrew Tate also faces a civil suit filed by four British women alleging sexual assault. Andrew and Tristan Tate vehemently deny the accusations and theorize that their wealth makes them targets for false accusations.
In March, a court in Romania said that the Tate brothers could be extradited to Britain, but only after legal proceedings in Romania conclude. Since the Tate brothers’ initial arrest in December 2022, they were held in police detention for three months prior to being placed on house arrest. They are now under “judicial control,” meaning they can travel through Romania “while adhering to the required legal conditions.”
This piece was written by one of the CSE Institute research assistants, Riley, as part of a three-part series discussing Andrew and Tristan Tate, the cases pending against them, and their impact on the commercial sex trade.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates as they become available.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.