Following the arrest of influencer Andrew Tate in Romania on suspicion of human trafficking and rape, social media was flooded with memes and misinformation from people both condemning and defending him.
Tate, 36, has more than 10 million followers across platforms and has become a polarizing figure on Twitch and YouTube, thanks to his extreme misogynistic statements. Videos of him on TikTok have been viewed more than 12 billion times, as of August 2022.
In a news release about Tate’s arrest, Romanian law enforcement said Tate and his brother, Tristan, along with two Romanian citizens, recruited women by “misrepresenting their intention” to have a romantic relationship, then moved and housed them in Romania. Law enforcement said the women were then forced to create pornographic content for the group to sell online.
Romanian authorities said in the news release they had been in contact with six alleged victims.
Tate has denied the allegations.
The charges follow a previously publicized investigation into Tate from Romanian authorities, and Tate’s own statements about his business.
On a since-deleted page on his website, Tate wrote that he had become a “multi-millionaire” through his “webcam studio” in Romania. The website page was archived on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together,” the website read. A lawyer for Tate didn’t respond to a request for comment about his website description.
Despite the nature of the allegations and Tate’s history of making misogynistic statements, the news of Tate’s arrest has inspired a slew of defenders of the influencer, who have employed misinformation and conspiracy theories to question the validity of the charges brought against Tate. The news has also inspired a wave of memes poking fun at the incident, some of which are based on pure speculation.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous piece of viral speculation spread in the wake of Tate’s arrest was that Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, was able to locate the divisive figure because of a video Tate posted in which Romanian pizza boxes are displayed.
Tate posted the pizza box video amid a feud with teenage climate activist Greta…
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