The Tate Brothers Are as Vile as Jeffrey Epstein
Can we please stop calling them "influencers" now?
When Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested on Saturday in connection with charges of rape, sex trafficking, and child pornography in the U.K., news reports inevitably identified the duo as “influencers,” “internet personalities,” or ”manosphere stars.”
These terms provide a convenient shorthand for journalists working on deadline. But they are also trivial ways of describing the people who are accused of committing heinous physical and sexual abuse against women and girls in multiple countries and who made a fortune peddling their gospel of violent misogyny to young men around the world, with horrific results. Women, in their view, were not partners or equals to be treated with respect or dignity but assets to be exploited for monetary gain and sexual gratification. (Both Tates have denied wrongdoing.)
Calling these professional woman-haters “influencers” — as if the Tates amassed a global following by sharing innocuous skincare tips or candid reviews of local taco stands — minimizes the allegations against them, much as calling Jeffrey Epstein a “disgraced financier” lacks the moral clarity and accuracy of “serial pedophile.”
The comparison is apt because if the Tates are guilty of even half of what they’ve been accused of doing, they are every bit as vile as Epstein. As detailed in an astonishing investigation by Heidi Blake in The New Yorker, the Tates were successful but chronically broke professional kickboxers who, in the 2010s, launched an extremely lucrative webcam porn business. Initially operating out of the U.K., they recruited young women — including some of their girlfriends — to perform explicit sex acts online. Circa 2015, after several women in the U.K. accused Andrew of rape and strangulation, the brothers relocated to Romania.
Operating from a compound near Bucharest, they took their seedy enterprise to a new level. Using what trafficking experts call the “loverboy method,” they targeted women on social media, overwhelming them with romantic attention and then luring them into sex work — while pocketing most of the revenue for themselves. At one point, they claimed to have 75 women working for them. Andrew Tate developed a network called The War Room, where men paid $8,000 a year to learn “how to recruit women into ‘sexual slavery’ in a series of tutorials that Tate called his Ph.D., or ‘Pimping Hoes Degree,’” according to The New Yorker.
In 2022, the Tates were arrested in Romania and charged with trafficking dozens of women and forming an organized crime group. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape. As the case slowly made its way through the Romanian judicial system, the brothers — staunch supporters of Donald Trump — were barred from leaving the country. They made a concerted effort to woo key figures in the MAGA movement, including Tucker Carlson, Barron Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., and have cozied up to far-right figures in the U.K., including noted Islamophobe Tommy Robinson and Reform leader Nigel Farage. They have portrayed themselves as victims of a politically motivated smear campaign, and won Trump’s gratitude by comparing their legal woes to his. They urged their legions of followers to vote for Trump in 2024, playing a not insignificant role in the dramatic rightward shift of young men in the last election. Even though the Tates were accused of brutal crimes against women and underage girls, conservatives were happy to have them on board because of their influence with young men.
Then, in February 2025, just weeks after Trump returned to the White House and put Tate supporters in his administration, the Romanian travel ban was lifted. The brothers soon arrived in Florida, where they were warmly welcomed by UFC CEO Dana White. For the past year and a half, they’ve jetted around the world, evading accountability for their alleged abuse of women — much as Epstein did for nearly a decade after a brief stint for soliciting a minor.
The similarities do not end with their luxurious, consequence-free lifestyles. Like Epstein, the Tates have been credibly accused of sex crimes, some involving minors, in multiple countries. Like Epstein, they reportedly targeted women and girls who came from impoverished backgrounds. Like Epstein, they allegedly relied on female accomplices who acted as enforcers and scouts — a small army of Ghislaine Maxwells. And, like Epstein, they cultivated powerful allies in media and politics, people who were willing to ignore the Tates’ more extreme rhetoric and simply believe they were champions of traditional masculinity who wanted to empower young men.
Yet, unlike Epstein, who used extreme wealth as a veil to obscure his predatory behavior and liked to hold private “salons” with influential people at his New York townhouse, the Tates have largely operated out in the open, using the bully pulpit of social media to bring their brand of virulent misogyny to the masses. (They’ve been banned from many platforms since 2022, but were reinstated on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover. Tate content also continues to circulate via other people’s accounts on YouTube, Instagram, and beyond). Anyone looking for evidence that Andrew Tate has the capacity for violence does not have to look far: A widely publicized video shows him whipping a girlfriend with a belt. (According to The New Yorker, she was either 14 or 15 at the time the video was made.)
In the seven years since Epstein died under mysterious circumstances in a Manhattan jail cell — and especially over the past year as the Epstein files have become a massive political liability for Trump — many have wondered how the “disgraced financier” was able to get away with so much for so long. The Tates are living proof of just how easy it can be — especially with the current administration in power and contempt for women is the glue holding the fractious MAGA movement together.
Yet the era of impunity may have ended Saturday, when the Tates were seized by federal marshals at a bare-knuckle fight in Miami. In what we can only pray is a harbinger of things to come, Andrew Tate was dragged across social media for his arrest outfit: a skintight purple blouse, snug capri pants, and black loafers. (Ridicule, especially at the hands of women, is kryptonite to misogynists.)
The Tates now face extradition to the U.K. a country that, unlike the U.S., actually seems to be doing something about people connected to Epstein. The White House has said it will not block such efforts by British authorities, which some outlets have spun to suggest that the Trump administration is now holding the Tates “at arm’s length,” which is laughable, given the little regard the White House has shown toward women victimized by sexual violence. The Tates’ arrest capped off a week in which Trump finally paid E. Jean Carroll $5.8 million she was awarded in a sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit in 2023 and in which acting attorney general Tood Blanche — the man who met in private with Mawell just before she was transferred to a minimum-security prison — held a perfunctory meeting with Epstein survivors to secure votes for his confirmation.
As much as Republicans would like to paint the Tates as extremists, they merely embody a more debauched version of the “masculinism” that pervades the MAGA movement — beliefs that are evident in everything from JD Vance’s birth-rate obsession to Pete Hegseth’s plan to put soldiers with “low T” on testosterone therapy . They have helped transform the manosphere — a loose coalition of podcasters and live-streamers who share a distaste for feminism — into an important platform for reaching young men.
Calling the Tates “influencers” trivializes their’ odious behavior, but there is no doubt they have been enormously influential. (For more evidence of their frightening cultural reach, watch Louis Theroux’s documentary, Inside the Manosphere on Netflix.)
So what should we call them? For now, it feels appropriate to describe them as MAGA loyalists, prolific hate merchants, and losers in ill-fitting capri pants. But hopefully one day soon, we can call them something else: convicted sex criminals.
Meredith Blake is The Contrarian’s culture columnist.
They are influencing me to barf!
Since the final decision on extradition rests with Rubio and he has shown himself eager to debase himself in the service of the trump family (including,perhaps, Barron), I won’t feel confident about them facing any real consequences till they’re in a British prison.