Twitter star Andrew Tate charged with rape in Romania

The former kickboxing champion has styled himself as a self-help guru for young men by promoting a hypermasculine lifestyle.

Andrew Tate denies wrongdoing. Picture: AFP

Social media influencer Andrew Tate has been formally charged with rape, human trafficking and being part of an organised crime ring along with his brother and two women.

The indictment was filed in court by the Directorate for ­Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, Romania’s specialised prosecutor agency. The charges will be reviewed by a judge within 60 days and, unless thrown out for procedural errors, head to trial.

Tate, the US-British former kickboxing champion, denies wrongdoing. He was arrested in late December while prosecutors investigated. He and his brother Tristan were held in jail before being released to house arrest in March.

Prosecutors said that the brothers and two Romanian women formed a criminal gang in 2021 with the aim of trafficking women. It said seven female victims were befriended by the gang and promised romantic ­relationships, enticed to travel to Romania and then sexually ­exploited, part of what it called the gang’s “lover boy” ploy.

Mateea Petrescu, Tate’s spokeswoman, said that the brothers would “demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation”, according to the Associated Press. The brothers were to attend a hearing on Wednesday in Bucharest.

On his Twitter account, Tate posted a video montage of men who had been accused of sexual assault only to be cleared in court or have their cases dismissed, ­including soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and film star Johnny Depp. “Today it’s me. Tomorrow is you. Nobody is safe from these lies.”

Tate first gained notoriety in 2016 when he was kicked out of a British reality-TV show over a video that showed him repeatedly hitting a woman with a belt and threatening her. Over the ensuing years, he styled himself as a self-help guru for young men by promoting a hypermasculine lifestyle that was criticised by some as denigrating women. He criticised a Western culture that denigrated what he called the traditional role of men in society.

Tate was banned at various times from Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube for hate speech and misogynistic comments, including that women should bear some responsibility for being sexually assaulted.

He returned to Twitter last year after Elon Musk reinstated his account, and now has 6.9 million followers. He was ranked the most popular influencer among American teens, according to a twice-yearly survey by Piper Sandler.

The prosecutor’s office said that to control the women it lured to Romania, the group would put them under constant surveillance and use physical threats and violence to get them to perform pornographic online videos.

The Wall Street Journal