Andrew Tate Speaks Out From Prison: ‘Cockroaches, Lice, and Bed Bugs Are My Only Friends’

Tate’s claims about the jail’s conditions come weeks after he was reportedly briefly hospitalized whilst “suffering from certain ailments.”

Tate was arrested at the end of last month at his and his brother’s shared compound in Romania, where their alleged human trafficking business was headquartered. Romanian prosecutors say Tate is suspected of being part of a criminal group that lures women via false promises and sexually exploits them, subjecting them to “physical violence and mental coercion through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and invoking alleged debts,” and forcing them to make pornographic videos.

He’s tried—unsuccessfully—to appeal his jail sentence, but per a Romanian judge’s most recent ruling, he’ll remain jailed through the end of next month. Between being serially rejected by the legal system, recently having his entire fleet of luxury cars confiscated by the Romanian government, and now, his descriptions of living in squalor in Romanian jail, his “top G” persona seems to have evaporated into thin air. You hate to see it.

Since Tate’s arrest of Dec. 29, several reports have emerged detailing a series of allegations of rape and violence against women perpetrated by Tate. Vice World News reported earlier this month that in 2015, Tate was investigated by police in the U.K. after being accused of rape by two women and beatings and assaults by another. Vice even provided audio and text messages in which Tate told one woman, “I love raping you,” among numerous other threatening and disturbing messages. Police referred the charges to the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after significant delay four years later, but CPS ultimately declined to prosecute Tate.

Tate denies all of these charges, including the human trafficking charges he faces in Romania. Yet, the very business platform described on his own website essentially amounts to human trafficking. In his viral videos, he proudly endorses violence against women. As Jezebel reported last year, Tate’s viral misogyny has reached young men and children in horrifying numbers, requiring teachers and community educators to intervene.

As his bodyguard talks to the press about how all of the women Tate allegedly trafficked were simply “young and stupid,” and his supporters dole out one Matrix theory after another about Tate being so influential that world governments had to take him out, I almost have to laugh. None of this is vaguely as complicated as Tate or his sycophants have convinced themselves it is—there’s significant evidence that he trafficked and physically and emotionally harmed dozens of women. He’s now facing accountability—not some top-level global conspiracy—as he should.