Tate Supporters Disrupt Press Conference Held to Highlight Harassment of His Alleged Victims

Lawyers for Andrew Tate’s alleged victims say the campaign of harassment and intimidation against their clients has only been underlined by the actions of the influencer’s representatives on Thursday, as they showed up at a press conference attempting to derail the event.

Lawyers acting for Tate’s alleged victims in Romania and the UK held a press conference in Bucharest, Romania to draw attention to what they say has been a sustained campaign of harassment by Tate and his online followers, designed to intimidate the women into silence.

But the press conference, held at the Sheraton Bucharest Hotel, threatened to descend into farce when a group of Tate’s Romanian representatives, including lawyer Eugen Vidineac and head of communications Mateea Petrescu, showed up at the event, interjecting and attempting to disrupt proceedings.

Jack Beeston, an associate lawyer for UK law firm McCue Jury & Partners, which is representing four British women suing Tate for rape and physical assault, said that the actions of Tate’s representatives were “ironic.”

“This was a press conference about the harassment and intimidation of witnesses and survivors. They showed that their only response is to harass,” he said.

He told VICE News that five people affiliated with Tate, including his Romanian lawyer and head of communications, and two apparently pro-Tate Romanian journalists, sat in the front row of the press conference, interrupting throughout. 

Afterwards they sat in the chairs vacated by the lawyers representing Tate’s alleged victims, and held their own impromptu press conference.

“Our clients don’t have a megaphone like Tate – the purpose of this press conference was to give them a voice in front of the world’s media,” he said. 

“[Tate’s representatives] responded by trying to essentially silence us and make the whole thing a farce. It was a properly embarrassing performance.”

The press conference was held by held by lawyers representing Tate’s alleged victims in the UK, along with lawyers from the US-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center and law firm Laffey, Bucci & Kent, representing alleged victims in the Romanian case, to “present a united front against the Tates for their attempts to harass, intimidate and silence those who are brave enough to speak out against them.”

They say this harassment has continued despite some of the women in the Romanian case filing for a protective order to protect their safety and privacy, with Tate’s vociferous supporters posting their names, pictures and other personal information on social media in months in an attempt to discredit and harass them. VICE News has seen posts on X, formerly Twitter, in which a pro-Tate account with nearly 100,000 followers has revealed the name and photos of one of the alleged victims, branding her a “false accuser” spinning a “web of lies.”

“These women are very afraid, they're terrified, they have been threatened, they've had people come to their place of work,” said Jillian Roth of law firm Laffey, Bucci & Kent, representing two of the key witnesses in the Romanian prosecution.

What’s more, the lawyers say Tate himself has threatened to expose the identities of his UK accusers – and sue them for defamation – in another apparent attempt to silence those women.

“This is a blatant attempt to threaten and intimidate our clients, as it is self-evident from Mr. Tate’s behaviour that anyone who speaks out against him will be subjected to extraordinary abuse online and most concerningly, in person,” said Matthew Jury, who is representing the four UK women suing Tate. The accounts of three of the women were first revealed by VICE News earlier this year. Tate has strenuously denied all allegations against him.

“The message the survivors have asked me to communicate today is: ‘We will not be bullied into silence’.”

The women’s lawyers said Tate used his powerful propaganda apparatus of online supporters – many recruited through his so-called educational platform “The Real World” – to expose and attack his accusers on social media, and called on those doing so to stop. One of Tate’s accusers who has been the subject of the online attacks has reportedly been left struggling to meet “even basic needs” due to the harassment, according to a report last month.

“Tate uses children and vulnerable men to spread his messages,” said the lawyers’ statement. “We encourage people to play their part in stopping the spread of disinformation online and to think carefully about how their words in these spaces can affect people already suffering immensely.”

Tate, who is based in Romania, was arrested in December alongside his brother Tristan and two women, before being indicted in June on charges of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women. Tate has denied the charges against him, denouncing the prosecution as a “witch hunt.” 

While his UK accusers filed police complaints over Tate’s alleged abuse, resulting in a multi-year investigation which saw Tate arrested twice, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute in 2019, finding that there was “no realistic prospect of a conviction.” Jury said Thursday that despite that decision, his team was “determined to ensure that Tate will still face prosecution in England for his alleged crimes.”

In July this year, the Tate brothers filed a lawsuit in Florida against two of their accusers, suing them for $5 million on the grounds of defamation, loss of earnings, false imprisonment, conspiracy, and infliction of emotional distress. Lawyers for the women said the lawsuit was a “crude and malicious attempt to spread disinformation” and an attempt to silence their clients.

Since then, the women targeted in the suit have applied for a protective order to keep their identities confidential during and after the case, due to the intimate nature of the case, the Romanian prosecution against the Tates, and the threats faced by the women. The order is yet to be ruled on by the judge in Florida, but a motion for the women to be referred to under pseudonyms in the case was granted last month.

Despite the women’s concerns for their safety, Tate’s supporters have continued to reveal their identities and post statements intended to discredit them online in recent months, with some retweeted by Tate himself.

“Any Tate acolyte on Twitter will be well aware of who these women are,” Beeston told VICE News. 

“Whether you’re an MP who speaks about Tate in parliament, a schoolgirl who speaks out in the classroom, a journalist who writes something about Tate, a lawyer who represents his women who have spoken out about him – if you speak out you’re very quickly identified, harassed, intimidated, slandered.”

He said the way in which Tate had been operating “a kind of multijurisdictional harassment campaign” raised concerns about the administration of justice.

Jury said that Tate had indicated that he planned to use the same tactics he had used against his accusers in the Romanian case to bear on the UK women who were preparing to sue him in British courts over allegations of rape and physical abuse. He said that Tate had said he would resist any attempt by the women to claim anonymity – which he said amounted to “a blatant attempt to threaten and intimidate our clients” – and that earlier in the week, he had served the firm with notice that they would be sued for defamation if they continued to make the survivors’ case against him public.

“This is a tactic which Tate has employed before,” said Jury. “If any such claim is made, we will respond immediately with all available remedies in both the civil and criminal law.”

Tate has built a huge global following among young men and boys online, raising concerns about the influence of his misogyny and toxic masculinity. His massive reach on social media platforms has been fuelled in large part by his so-called educational platform “The Real World,” which purports to teach young men skills to succeed in online business, but which critics say acts more as a pyramid scheme and propaganda machine for Tate and his content. 

Members of the platform’s “affiliate marketing campus” are tasked with editing and publishing numerous social media videos promoting Tate each day, flooding the internet with pro-Tate content, with the goal of eventually earning income from new subscribers to the site. 

Last month, the app versions of The Real World were removed from Google Play and Apple’s App Store, following reporting by VICE News that campaigners believed the app to be a harmful pyramid scheme targeting teenage boys.

Jury, whose firm was involved in the campaign for the app to be banned, claimed the move may have cost Tate “$167 million in revenue a year.” 

“Contrary to what Tate says, we did not do so because we are targeting his businesses, but because it is important that someone puts a stop to his toxic hold on our children.” 

Petrescu, Tate's head of communications, rejected the accusations that her client was using the legal system to intimidate his victims.

"Andrew Tate has the legal right to use and benefit from the legal system in the United States, where he is a citizen, the United Kingdom, where he is a citizen, or anywhere else in the world," she said.