Andrew Tate, the prominent pro-Trump personality dubbed by an online admirer the "king of toxic masculinity," has been arrested as part of a human-trafficking investigation.
The former kickboxer's home in Romania was raided after police received reports of an American woman being held there against her will. A Romanian newspaper reported that the police found both the American woman and a Romanian woman in the building during the raid.
According to a report in The Daily Beast, the vocal MAGA-promoting Tate cultivated a social media image as a "wealthy cigar-smoking playboy."
"But Tate’s treatment of women had an ugly side," the report states. "In 2016, he was booted off the British version of 'Big Brother' over a video of him hitting a woman with a belt. This March, Britain’s Daily Mirror tabloid profiled him and his brother Tristan Tate and their Romania-based business which used webcam models to trick men into sending the brothers tens of thousands of dollars. In one video on his YouTube channel, Andrew Tate said '40 percent' of the reason he moved to Romania was because Romanian police were less likely to pursue sexual assault allegations."
Another of Tate’s favorite activities was hanging out with the stars of the Trump right-wing movement. In 2019, Tate he posed for a picture and shared a meal with far-right cable news commentator Jack Posobiec and Infowars host Paul Joseph Watkins. Tate has been a guest multiple times on Alex Jones' Infowars programs.
Shortly after the Harvey Weinstein revelations, Tate tweeted “if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bare [sic] some responsibility.”
After his arrest Tate posted a picture on Instagram showing him smoking a cigar in a staged interrogation room as "police officers" loomed over him. Tate added a caption: “Officer...l think we can all agree that bitches love to lie.”
