Inside the dark, disturbing world of influencer Andrew Tate’s “manosphere”

His abhorrent sexist ideology advocates male supremacy and celebrates violence against females – yet it has generated millions of pounds. Tate, 37, has argued women should take some responsibility for their sexual assaults, and once claimed the world would be a better place if women had their number of sexual partners tattooed on their heads.

Fuelled by the power of social media algorithms, Tate’s views have been amplified to legions of vulnerable males who have paid thousands to be taught his methods of attracting, and controlling, women.

But filmmakers Matt Shea and Jamie Tahsin have uncovered allegations of rape, sexual violence, grooming and links to organised crime that now threaten to bring down this figurehead of toxic masculinity.

Clown World: Four Years Inside Andrew Tate’s Manosphere details his huge influence, manipulative tactics and elite global network training men to groom women into online sex work.

“We first became aware of Tate in 2019 when one of our friend’s nephews had become radicalised by the manosphere via Tate,” Shea told this newspaper.

“The manosphere is essentially a shared belief by different online groups that the world is being manipulated to make life easier for women, at the expense of men.

“We had a quick look at who Tate was and his TikTok videos and noticed that what young people were looking at was more extreme than anyone really had realised. We began to investigate him as a kind of viral misogynist potentially causing social harm by spreading his extremist views to boys and young men.

“That progressed to investigating his online course subscription model, which we uncovered to be basically a pyramid scheme in which he financially incentivised people to share extreme content of him in order to sell his courses.

“He had basically manipulated thousands of young people into doing this, making him famous and rich overnight.”

He adds: “Then the investigation got more serious, because we began to uncover allegations of rape and sexual abuse during his time running an adult webcam house in Luton, allegations that he denies.

“Then it got even more insane and terrifying when we uncovered the wider story of his elite network, the War Room, which ostensibly trains men to become alpha males like him.

“But in reality it is training men worldwide how to groom women into online sex work.”

A survey last year found half of UK boys aged 16 and 17 held a positive view of Tate – and were more likely to have heard of him than then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

So worrying is his impact on a generation of young men, extreme misogyny is set to be treated as a form of extremism under new government plans.

At the peak of Tate’s rise to fame in 2022 – when he claimed to make more than £4million a month from fees to his online clubs – Shea and Tahsin secured access to his Romanian compound and ultra secretive network. Their remit was not just to investigate his growing influence, but also to find out if he was a criminal, exploiting women for his own financial gain.

Infiltrating the leaders of Tate’s War Room – a members-only online club which his followers pay £6,300 a year to join with the promise of direct access – Shea recalls sparring in a boxing ring with 6ft 2ins Tate. He says he was taught a lesson central to Tate’s philosophy – violence underpins everything.

From Clown World: “Tate says modern life is too comfortable, that to become a real man you must go through suffering, and that this will lead to successful conquests. The first step is to buy his courses.” Tate’s number one course is his PhD (Pimping Hoes Degree).

Subscribers receive a video in which Tate lays out his cure for the state of male and female sexual dynamics.

But what the course really appears to do, found Shea and Tahsin, was teach the “loverboy method”, in which a man weaponises affection to lure potential victims, puts them to work in the sex industry and takes the spoils. The investigators write: “Our impression was it explained how to attract unsuspecting women, then gradually make them more submissive until you have complete dominance over them. Once an unsuspecting subject is perceived to have passed Tate’s PhD test, she is ready to be converted from dating prospect to webcam worker.”

Tate, who moved from Washington DC to Luton aged 11, first rose to fame after a short-lived appearance on reality TV show Big Brother in 2016. He only lasted six days on the programme, before being removed following the emergence of a video that appeared to show him attacking a woman.

But his influence surged online, with his controversial views attracting billions of views. More than 10 million people follow him on X, formerly Twitter.

Tate’s posts are so extreme that many have questioned whether he is genuine or putting on an act. Shea said of Tate: “He has created himself as the kind of man every adolescent boy wants to be around. And, of course, every man has that adolescent boy inside them. And so, you can see the appeal, right? He’s strong, he’s a fighter, he’s rich, he can be funny, he’s interesting.

“When we first met him he was charming. But he very quickly went into one of his characteristic diatribes where he began to weave everything from the Covid pandemic to tax law into some kind of grand conspiracy directed against young men. And it was in these rants that he really came alive.

“Tate has realised the more attention he gets, negative or positive, just furthers his reach and therefore his ability to monetise his audience.”

Just months after Shea and Tahsin witnessed the Tate Machine in full swing in Romania in August 2022, police arrested Andrew and his brother Tristan over alleged human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. They deny these allegations.

In August, the Tates were investigated in Romania over fresh allegations, including sex with a minor and trafficking underage people.

Andrew has denounced the case against him as a “stitch up”. But Shea and Tahsin, through the course of their investigation, also spoke with three women in the UK who allege to have been sexually assaulted by Tate and are now pursuing a civil claim. The journalists also claimed to have uncovered evidence of women being groomed into online sex work.

In March police announced they were investigating the Tate brothers for other alleged crimes of sexual aggression from 2012-15 in the UK.

But will the prospect of a trial – either in Romania or the UK – bring down Tate, or serve only to further fuel his cult of followers?

Former Vice journalist Shea said: “There’s always an extreme and vocal minority of people who will continue, whatever justice or journalism is thrown at people like Tate.

“They see him as a martyr or evidence of a conspiracy to bring him down. The same is true for figures like Trump and many others.

“There’s very little you can do to sway that vocal minority. But there are a whole bunch of other Tate followers who are sway-able. And I think the only hope we have against figures like Tate is journalism and the justice system.”

He adds: “But in the many years it takes for that to happen, they can cause a lot of damage, and they can only do that because of the instant fame afforded to them by these insane social media algorithms. People think Andrew Tate is fake. People think he’s a charlatan.

“But you can’t deny that he is significant and famous, and that has always been the metric he cares most about.”

● To order a copy of Clown World by Jamie Tahsin & Matt Shea (Quercus, £20) visit www.expressbookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25.