When far-right influencer Andrew Tate was arrested by Romanian authorities on suspicion of sex trafficking last December, the Romanian agency DIICOT argued that Tate and his brother Tristan used the “loverboy method” to lure women to their compound in Bucharest under the guise of having a relationship with them before forcing them to do sex work. Tate has maintained his innocence, arguing that he never at any point has had to coerce any of his partners into doing sex work for him and recently telling Tucker Carlson that he had “no financial motivation” to force women to make online content for him.
Newly leaked screen grabs of 2021 messages from the War Room, Tate’s all-male network of associates, however, are complicating Tate’s narrative. In the messages, which sources close to the War Room verified to Rolling Stone, Tate appears to be boasting about manipulating one of his girlfriends into doing sex work for him.
In the messages, Tate explained how one of the women, who moved from her native country to be with him and has “lost her support networks at home,” had been begging to see him. So in order to make her more dependent on him, he writes, he made up a story that he had spoken to friends of hers who had claimed she had worked at a sex club prior to meeting him, prompting him to become angry at her and threaten to kick her out. In the texts, Tate appears to explain how this lie succeeds in putting the woman on the defensive and making her more dependent on him.
“The real goal is for her to agree to never go anywhere without me. Not even her home town,” he writes. “I need her working.”