But their legal problems haven’t gone away. The Romanian case is moving forward, and once it’s finished, the brothers will face charges of human trafficking and rape in Britain.
And in the United States, The Times found, anti-trafficking agents at the Department of Homeland Security have been investigating the Tates for years.
Riding Outrage to Money and Fame
Andrew Tate found modest fame as a professional kickboxer in the 2010s, but as he tells it, he didn’t start making real money until he and his brother went into pornography.
By 2015, the Tates had installed women in apartments and a hotel room in Britain, to perform live on webcams for paying customers. Andrew later described how the brothers romanced attractive women, coaxed them into the business and took most of the profits.
“It’s not just about picking up girls,” Mr. Tate said in an interview posted to YouTube. “It’s about converting them into really loving you enough to moving in with you and working for you and giving you all the money.”
Both brothers had run-ins with the British police. Tristan was arrested in 2014 after a woman reported he had assaulted her.
The next year, Andrew was arrested three times, the police said. One woman who had worked for him said in court documents that he strangled her during sex; another said he had raped, beaten and pulled a gun on her; a third woman said he had raped and strangled her while they were dating.
Authorities did not charge either brother. But Andrew said the scrutiny prompted him to leave Britain.
One day, he recalled on a podcast years later, he woke up and said, “I will not live under a government that will do this to me when I’ve done nothing wrong.” He and Tristan moved to Romania, a country they had gotten to know through the professional fighting circuit. There, Andrew said on another show, “you can get away with shit you can’t get away with in the West.”
With Romania as their new home base, the brothers ran their webcam business from there and in Britain.
When Andrew was cast for the British reality show “Big Brother” in 2016, few knew about his business or the assault allegations.
He was soon fired, however, after a tabloid obtained a video of him whipping a girlfriend with a belt. They both said it was consensual.
The scandal boosted his fame, especially on social media, where he became a fierce supporter of Mr. Trump. Donald Trump Jr. liked one of his supportive Twitter posts and they soon agreed to meet, Mr. Tate recalled on a podcast. He went to Trump Tower in 2017.
“We still inbox each other every couple of days,” Mr. Tate said on the podcast, in 2018.
By 2022, he and Tristan had gained millions of followers by preaching mental and physical discipline, entrepreneurship and the subjugation of women. They had expanded the porn business to TikTok, OnlyFans and other platforms, and were selling their courses to young men. One offering was called PHD, for “pimping hoes degree.” Over the previous eight years, they had earned at least 21 million pounds (nearly $28 million), according to records from a British court that found they had evaded taxes.
It doesn’t matter
whether a woman
wants to be a lawyer,
or a house maker,
or webcam girl.
Unless she has a man directing her,
she’s gonna [expletive] it up.
They’re just not built to be
completely independent creatures.
Interview with Andrew Tate conducted by James English and posted to YouTube in 2021. Mr. Tate discusses his beliefs about the inferiority of women.
How Andrew Tate, Manosphere Star Accused of Rape and Trafficking, Was Freed - The New York Times
When Andrew was kicked off several social media platforms and decried by high school teachers, it only increased his notoriety. He became one of the most searched people on Google.
In December 2022, the brothers were arrested in Romania and, with court approval, jailed for three months. Prosecutors later charged them with forming an organized criminal group and trafficking seven women, and charged Andrew with rape.
The 360-page sealed indictment, obtained by The Times, said the Tates had tricked the women into believing they were in long-term relationships, then coerced them into pornographic work. The brothers had put them under surveillance, restricted their movements and docked their pay if they cried on camera or broke other rules, prosecutors said.
Text messages cited in the indictment show Andrew Tate and one woman discussing what would happen if she went to Romania.
Woman
do you want me to be your slave or your wife?
Andrew Tate
you'll do whatever I tell you
which is the same thing
if I choose a woman to be my wife, she'll love me enough to let me tell her what I feel like
I WILL DECIDE if she's a slave
Once she arrived, he raped her twice, on one occasion forcing her into group sex, the indictment said.
Andrew choked another woman so hard that blood vessels in her eye burst, prosecutors said.
In a text-message chat titled “PIMPS,” Tristan and two associates discussed how to punish a woman who said she would no longer work for them.
Tristan Tate
The move now is as follows.
Associate 1
ok
Tristan Tate
both of you go, get her out of the house
Associate 2
Ok
Tristan Tate
hit her if you have to, I don't care
don't let her take her things
Associate 2
thanks
Ok
The woman was pushed down and dragged out of the house, she and witnesses told prosecutors.
Romania, long known as a hub for sex trafficking, has expanded prosecutions to include so-called Lover Boy cases based on romance, psychological coercion and threats. The indictment against the Tates acknowledged that two of the women cited as victims said they didn’t see themselves that way. Prosecutors said evidence showed that they were.
Press releases announcing the arrest, the indictment and the ensuing restrictions on the Tates’ movements made headlines around the world. But Mr. Tate, facing the prospect of prison, didn’t retreat from the controversy. He used it.
From Tucker to Barron
After his arrest, Mr. Tate hired Joseph D. McBride, a lawyer who had defended Trump supporters accused of insurrection at the Capitol. In short order, Mr. McBride pitched his brash new client to the conservative host Tucker Carlson.
In some ways, it was an odd pairing. Mr. Carlson was a proud husband who promoted Christian family values. But he had been ousted from Fox News after lawsuits exposed offensive language in his private messages to colleagues. He was building his own show on Twitter. And Mr. Tate, who had been reinstated on the platform by Elon Musk, had millions of followers there.
In an interview with The Times, Mr. McBride recalled telling Mr. Carlson that if he flew to Romania for a sit-down with Andrew, “I know we’ll break the internet.”

The World of Andrew Tate
nytimes.com/…025/12/10/us/andrew-tate-barron- …
We look at the social media influencer accused of rape and human trafficking, who was freed from Romania after courting Trump’s allies and family members.
Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, are paragons of the manosphere — influencers who say a man’s role is to dominate women. In 2023, Romanian prosecutors said the brothers had seduced women and then pressed them into performing for the Tates’ pornography business. Andrew was also accused of rape. They were barred from leaving the country while prosecutors built their case.
Earlier this year, though, Romania lifted the travel restrictions. An investigation by my colleagues Megan Twohey and Isabella Kwai found that support from Trump administration officials had played a crucial role in the decision.
“We’re massively back,” a grinning Tate said in a video he posted in February as the brothers flew to Florida by private jet.
For years, Megan and Isabella found, Andrew built relationships with Trump’s advisers and relatives, including Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son. They interviewed dozens of people in Romania, the United States and Britain. They reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and private messages. Their work explains why the Tates are free again, at least for now.
It can be hard to explain which defendants the Trump administration backs, and why, as my colleague Tyler Pager told me the other day. But apparently even people accused of rape can get a hand, even amid the furor over the Epstein files, if they have the right contacts.
The White House said it had no knowledge of the brothers’ legal issues. The Tates deny any criminal wrongdoing. The Tates’ lawyer said The Times’s reporting on Andrew and Barron was “fake news.”
Fall and rise
The Tate brothers became wealthy as pornographers: They had women in Britain and, later, Romania perform live on webcams for paying customers. The business flourished on TikTok, OnlyFans and elsewhere.
But they became famous as influencers, boasting to millions of followers about their mental toughness, physical discipline and entrepreneurial skill. “It’s not just about picking up girls,” Andrew said in an interview on YouTube. “It’s about converting them into really loving you enough to moving in with you and working for you and giving you all the money.”
They sold courses on these subjects. One promised a Ph.D. — a “pimping hoes degree.” Between 2014 and 2022, they earned at least 21 million pounds (nearly $28 million), according to records from a British court. (A judge found that they had evaded taxes.)
The brothers’ arrest in Romania made headlines around the world. Andrew didn’t shy from the news storm when it came. “He used it,” write Megan and Isabella.
Andrew soon made contact with the conservative podcast host Tucker Carlson, who flew to Bucharest to interview him. Carlson didn’t press Tate on his pornography business or about his comments about women, but talked instead about their interest in what they described as a left-wing war on masculinity. Carlson at one point mischaracterized the criminal charges against Andrew, saying they had nothing to do with sexual violence or human trafficking.
Megan and Isabella asked Carlson about that. He apologized for getting it wrong. “It doesn’t change my view that the Tates, whatever their personal behavior, had a message worth hearing,” he said.
The Carlson interview led to more press. Charlie Kirk talked about the Tates on his podcast, agreeing that masculinity was under attack. Candace Owens, another conservative podcaster, interviewed Andrew in Bucharest. Don’t judge him for his past comments, she told her listeners. “This is how guys have fun,” she said, “the same way that girls sit around and talk about ‘Real Housewives.’”
In other interviews, Andrew compared himself to President Trump, drawing parallels between the two men: pariahs on social media, unfairly targeted for prosecution, victims of political attacks.
Soon, the brothers had defenders in the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. offered support on X. “They just want to silence you,” he wrote. And Barron Trump spoke to Andrew over Zoom, the investigation found. “I’m very close to the Trump family,” Andrew said in the summer of 2024.
Wheels up
Then came a Romanian order that instructed prosecutors to negotiate with the Tates, Megan and Isabella write. The prime minister of Romania believed that the Trump administration would be happy with the outcome, said a person who was not authorized to discuss it.
On the day the brothers left Romania for Florida, The Times asked their lawyer whether the Trump administration had aided in their release: “Do the math,” he said. “These guys are on the plane.”
The Tate brothers are by no means free of trouble. They are still under investigation in Romania, Britain and, as Megan and Isabella learned, the United States. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, said the Tates were not welcome in his state. They continue to bounce around.
“I’m in Dubai, I’m still rich, all I do is win,” Andrew said in a video posted in April. It shows him driving away in a Bugatti.
I urge you to read the entirety of Megan and Isabella’s investigation.