Andrew Tate's accusers are afraid that Trump's team want to free him
Four women, who claim they were sexually abused by influencer and former reality star Andrew Tate, have spoken out to share concerns after Trump's team reportedly asked the Romanian government to return his (and his brother Tristan's) passport.
The Tate brothers have been charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women and are awaiting trial in Romania, where the offences are alleged to have taken place. They deny all accusations.
Both were previously under house arrest while pending their day in court, but are now able to move freely throughout Romania but may not leave the country. Both are dual UK-US citizens.
Once the trial in Romania concludes, the Tate brothers are also wanted by the authorities in the UK following further sexual assault-based allegations made here and reported to police in Bedfordshire. A lawsuit has also been filed by a woman in Florida who is alleging the Tate brothers coerced her into sex work, lured her to Romania and defamed her (the brothers sued her for defamation in 2023).
The women have said they are "extremely concerned" by reports that Trump's special envoy Richard Grenell spoke to a Romanian official, Emil Hurezeanu, to request the Tate brothers had their passports returned and for the restrictions currently imposed upon them to be relaxed.
In full, a statement from lawyers, McCue Jury & Partners to the press said: "We are extremely concerned about reports that figures in Donald Trump’s administration are pressuring the Romanian authorities to relax travel restrictions on Andrew Tate and his brother, which would increase the risk of the Tate brothers evading justice or fleeing from the authorities in Romania and the UK. We hope that the Romanian and the UK authorities will be left alone to do their jobs."
Their lawyer, Matthew Jury, added (via the BBC) that they are "absolutely bewildered why the Trump administration has decided to interfere in this way".
He added, "It would be embarrassing for the UK government and a complete abdication of its responsibility to the victims if it stands by and lets this continue."
Grenell, who has been open about his support for Andrew Tate on social media, reportedly said "no substantive conversation" had taken place between him and the Romanian minister.
Hurezeanu later said during an interview with G4Media, "Richard Grenell told me he is interested in the fate of the Tate brothers. Later I requested a new meeting to better understand his intentions in relation to Romania, but it never took place."
The impact of Andrew Tate and his vocal support for right wing politics, including a heavy Trump endorsement, cannot be understated. Last year, Cosmopolitan UK investigated how his influence on boys and young men is playing out in schools, with teachers around the country saying the rise of toxic masculinity figureheads (Tate in particular) is deeply apparent.
Research from Vodafone also found that 70% of teachers witnessed a rise in sexist language in the classroom between 2023 and 2024, and one in five parents said they've also noticed a gradual change in the language their sons use to talk about women and girls. Despite their not being a single country in the world that has closed the gender pay gap, along with the fact that data suggests one in 30 women are raped and/or sexually assaulted every year (with many other incidents going unreported), one in six young men also now say feminism has done more harm than good.
One teacher told us, "Many students don't agree with feminism and hold Andrew Tate as a role model, although the Tate references have improved since he’s been in prison as he hasn't been on their phones as much. At one point when Tate was in the media every day there were multiple incidents of boys asking female teachers what ‘colour is their Bugatti’ [a clapback in response to criticism implying ‘I’m superior to you’]."
She added that the anti-women sentiment deepened during the pandemic. "Students were spending more and more time online and on TikTok without supervision and the algorithm funnels them down a very anti-women rabbit hole."
While not all young boys and men feel this way, the growing divide in political ideologies between the sexes sadly shows no sign of going away anytime soon.
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