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CONTROVERSIAL INFLUENCER ANDREW Tate left Romania this morning on a private jet to the US.
He was joined by his brother Tristan.
The pair, who have been charged with human trafficking and rape by Romanian authorities, took a private plane from the country to Florida, according to officials.
Tate was put under house arrest in Romania in August 2024 when prosecutors launched a second criminal investigation against himself and his brother Tristan, as well as four other suspects. They all deny wrongdoing.
Romanian anti-organised crime units suspended their travel ban and a court lifted a precautionary seizure on some of their assets this week, allowing Andrew and Tristian to leave the country today.
Authorities specified that the siblings are still under judicial supervision, stating that they would have to “appear before the judicial authorities at every summons”.
But who is the self-proclaimed misogynistic influencer awaiting trial in Romania?
Andrew Tate’s views have been described as ‘extreme misogyny’ by domestic abuse charities, capable of radicalising men and boys to commit harm offline.
Styled as a “self-help guru”, Tate has previously said that women belong in the home, can’t drive, and are a man’s property.
He also believes that rape victims must “bear responsibility” for their attacks, and dates women aged 18–19 because he can “make an imprint” on them, according to previous videos.
In other clips, Tate – who poses with fast cars, guns and portrays himself as a cigar-smoking playboy – talks about hitting women, destroying their belongings and stopping them from going out.
The 38-year-old is not a fringe personality lurking in an obscure corner of the dark web, rather he is one of the most famous figures on TikTok and X, where videos of him have amassed millions of views.
Tate has obtained 10.7m followers on X, where he has also made frequent calls for Conor McGregor to run for President of Ireland.
We need Connor McGregor as president of Ireland.. 🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/9IN04N3oFe
— The Real World (@trwmain_) May 21, 2024
A 2023 report by Women’s Aid Federation of England found that “children and young people exposed to misogynistic social media content like Andrew Tate were almost 5 times more likely than those not exposed to it to view hurting someone physically as acceptable if you say sorry afterwards”.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said today that Tate has “promoted and normalised a hatred of women”, adding that he has built a “misogynist-industry”.
A former kickboxing world champion, Joint UK-US citizen Tate gained worldwide attention in 2016 when he appeared on British reality show Big Brother.
Tate’s rise to notoriety started when he was removed from the show over a video that appeared to show him attacking a woman with a belt – a clip he claims was edited. He also faced backlash for previous homophobic and racist posts on social media.
Since then, Tate has pivoted to becoming an online influencer, dominating the ‘alpha male’ community.
Andrew, now 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, claim to have made millions of from their social media empire.
In December 2022, Andrew and Tristan were arrested in Romania on suspicion of human trafficking and rape.
They were charged alongside two Romanian women who are accused of being part of the alleged organised crime group.
Earlier that year, Romanian police had raided one of Tate’s properties in Pipera, Romania, as well as a nearby webcam studio belonging to the Tates.
Four women were discovered by police – two of whom told police that they were being held against their will, sparking an investigation into human trafficking and rape.
By 2023, a total of seven victims had spoken out against the Tate brothers. The siblings were indicted on charges of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.
They continue to deny all charges and remain under investigation for money laundering and trafficking of minors.
Andrew and Tristan Tate had been under a travel ban in Romania for more than two years while they were under investigation.
Speculation that they would leave Romania had been mounting ahead of their journey, after the pair went quiet on social media.
Ioan Gliga, their lawyer, told CNN that the brothers left Romania this morning and are flying to Florida.
“They no longer have a travel ban… The prosecutor, at the request of the lawyers, modified the content of the obligations previously imposed,” Gliga said.
The decision by Romanian authorities to lift the ban came after the US reportedly put pressure on Bucharest to ease restrictions on Tate – who has become a cause célèbre on the American right.
Tate has also had his properties, vehicles, bank accounts and company shares returned to him by Romanian authorities.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that President Trump’s administration had pressed Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on Tate, first in a phone call, then when Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell met Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Grenell wrote on X that Romania was the “latest example” of how funds disbursed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had been “weaponised against people and politicians who weren’t woke”.
The Trump administration has slashed USAID payments and attempted to fire many of its staff.
Tate has been vocally supportive of both Trump and Musk – the latter reinstated his X account after it was banned in 2017, when Tate posted that women should “bare some responsibility” for sexual assaults.
While Tate’s travel ban has been lifted, investigations into their alleged crimes have not been dropped and they are expected to return to Romania.
Prosecutors in Romania are revising the charges against the Tate brothers, having permitted them to leave the country on the condition that they return, potentially as soon as the end of March.
While their request to depart the country was approved, prosecutors rejected their plea to have the charges dismissed.
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