Influencer Tasha Newcombe, 21, says her relationship with a 16-year-old is “going better” than any other relationship she’s had with a fellow adult.
The British internet personality and her teenage boyfriend, Marko Vituk, appeared on “The BlueTick Show” to discuss their romance which, though highly disturbing, is not illegal in the U.K., where the age of consent is 16.
Asked how it is “dating someone younger,” Newcombe — who boasts nearly 58,000 Instagram followers and nearly 270,000 on TikTok — said things are “going better than any of the others that I’ve been with.”
“I’ve never met someone so respectful in my life. It is crazy,” said Newcombe. “I don’t obsess over his age like everyone else does. Everyone else is so obsessed with his age and they’re like, ‘You’re this, you’re that. You like younger men.’ It’s like, no, I just don’t factor in his age. Granted, I know his age but it’s not something I sit there and think about all the time, like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s 16.’ Like, come on. No one’s gonna think that.”
Though she’s already lost her best friend over the disconcerting love story, Newcombe said she doesn’t take issue with anyone’s “opinion on it, but it’s the serious accusations that come with it.”
“I still feel so young at heart. … If you’d told me I would be in this position, like, last year, I would have laughed in your face, big time,” said Newcombe, who says she’s never previously dated anyone younger. “It’s just people are saying like, he’s being groomed and stuff by me.”
“Oh, f–k that,” Marko cut in. “I’m not being groomed.”
“You pursued me at the end of the day, like, he pursued me,” she reasoned.
During the episode, Newcombe seemed less bothered by dating a minor than the idea that Marko young could cheat on her during a boys trip with his fellow young friends.
The comments section on Newcombe’s social media profiles include references to pedophilia and “kiddy fiddlers.”
“Did you tuck your bf in bed before heading to the bar?” one user commented on an Instagram post of Newcombe sitting at a U.K. cocktail bar.
The drinking age in the U.K. is 18.
“Leave that little boy alone,” influencer ThunThun Skittles commented on a TikTok, where others remarked that the couple more accurately resemble “mother and son.”
“This is so sweet I’m a boy mom too,” quipped a user on another post.
