Abbie Chatfield reveals disturbing DMs she has received from ‘teen boys’ about Andrew Tate

Abbie Chatfield revealed she had received unsettling messages from boys as she co-hosted The Project on Sunday night.

Abbie Chatfield revealed she had been targeted by disturbing direct messages on social media during an appearance as co-host of The Project on Sunday night.

The 27-year-old radio host and former reality TV star opened up about the unsettling messages during a segment in which the panel discussed Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and Big Brother contestant who has been labelled “the scariest man on the internet”.

Tate, whose videos have been viewed more than 11 billion times on TikTok, has been accused of spreading violent misogynistic messages.

Among other things, Tate has said women “belong in the home”, “can’t drive”, and are a “man’s property”. He also argues that women should “bear some responsibility” if they’ve been raped.

Experts fear those extreme views are being disseminated to impressionable boys, who are shown Tate’s content via TikTok’s algorithm.

Tate’s misogynistic messaging has led to him being labelled the scariest man on the internet. Picture: Instagram

“I would love to say that this guy exists in dark corners of the internet that we can ignore, but the reality is he’s gone from complete obscurity in the last two months to being one of the most Googled people in the world,” podcaster Michelle Andrews told The Project in a story that aired before the panel discussion.

“There are too many young men who are consuming this stuff. You cannot ignore it. We did for a while, and it didn’t work.”

Chatfield told her fellow hosts she’d had “a really hard time” with the Tate situation, given her own online presence.

“I kind of exist in the realm of feminism and calling out misogyny, and on my podcast, my radio show, I’ve been asked (about him),” she explained.

“I do feel like I really want to ignore him. I want to suffocate him of any oxygen in media, because the more I engage with his content – even to research, for a radio segment – if I look at his TikToks, or he’s tagged in a TikTok and I look at it for too long, that feeds the algorithm and it feeds out more to my followers and to the followers who are already engaging in that content.

“It is getting a bit too big to ignore now. But I do still fear that if I speak about it to my followers or my listeners, it doesn’t really achieve anything. I’m sure those who are my listeners already feel this way, they agree that yes he’s disgusting, he’s awful.

“I’m not sure me speaking about it in a closed circuit will help anything. All it will do is have those who agree with me engage with his content more.”

A few months ago, few had heard of TikTok’s newest star, Andrew Tate. Now, he’s been labelled the scariest man on the internet, accused of spreading violent misogynistic messaging, with TikTok coming under fire for promoting his content to minors.#TheProjectTVpic.twitter.com/M6UaDvVmSl

— The Project (@theprojecttv) August 14, 2022

Hamish Macdonald asked Chatfield whether she was seeing evidence of Tate’s influence in her own experience online.

“Absolutely,” she responded.

“I’m getting DMs from what appear to be early teen boys saying, ‘I hope Andrew Tate destroys you,’ or things along that line.

“I also get comments calling me ‘Abbie Tate’, and comments on TikTok especially. That’s where it’s really, really rife.”

She went on to highlight a double standard in TikTok’s content moderation.

“I upload a TikTok in a white singlet, with a bra on, and it gets deleted in a minute, wouldn’t even go up. But there’s endless videos of him saying that women are property, and extremely vile, misogynistic things. How can that slip through the cracks but me in a singlet can’t?”

Abbie said she struggled with the topic of Tate.

Abbie with her Project co-hosts.

Fellow co-host Rachel Corbett also called out the platform for failing to remove Tate’s misogynistic content.

“When kids look at Instagram and TikTok, and the idea of 11.6 billion views as a success, that then says, ‘Well those views must be good, because look at how famous he is. So I want to emulate that.’ It’s just really dangerous,” said Corbett.

“I feel like TikTok has a responsibility, particularly if those are in the terms of their platform, to remove misogynistic posts. To not be feeding that out even more and feeding the beast.”

Originally published as Abbie Chatfield reveals disturbing DMs she has received from ‘teen boys’ about Andrew Tate