Andrew Tate latest news: KSI calls kickboxer ‘cringey’ and issues warning to fans

Romanian authorities have seized luxury cars from the compound of influencer Andrew Tate, who remains in custody on rape and trafficking charges.

Anti-organised crime prosecutors detained Mr Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects on 29 December on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit six women. They have denied any wrongdoing.

On Saturday, several cars, including a Rolls-Royce, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, were being taken from the city on the outskirts of the capital, Bucharest, to be transported to a storage location.

“If you’re still unfamiliar with Andrew Tate, you’re one of the lucky ones,” writes Clint Edwards. “Wherever it is you’re sheltering, I hope it is warm, comfortable and you have enough tinned food for the foreseeable.

“He offers young men the inside track on life. A ticket to the dream they didn’t quite know they had. In short, he is selling them a blueprint of how to be a man. And with a dearth of alternatives, they are more than willing to buy it.”

Romanian authorities have seized several luxury cars from Andrew Tate’s property in Bucharest, according to a journalist at the scene.

Vehicles including a Rolls-Royce, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were seen being taken from the Tate compound in the outskirts of the capital on Saturday for transportation to a storage facility, Reuters reports.

It comes after Romania’s crime agency searched properties in the counties of Bucharest, Ilfov and Prahova as part of investigations into charges against the 36-year-old British-US citizen relating to human trafficking and rape.

Youtuber KSI has called Andrew Tate “cringey” as he has called for fans to stop worshipping influencers.

The internet personality, whose real name is Olajide Olatunj, said he does not want to be “put on a pedestal” like the arrested former kickboxer.

He told BBC Newsbeat: “I don’t want people to worship me. I don’t want this Top G title,” referring to a nickname for Mr Tate popular among the former kickboxers followers.

KSI went on to contrast his and Tate’s relationship with their fanbase. He said: “Try and be fair to everyone, try and just be good to everyone. Spread positivity all the time,” he says.

“And yeah, you know, we’re all human. We’re all gonna make mistakes. No one is perfect. And I always say that to my audience: don’t put me on a pedestal. Like I am not the GOAT. I don’t want people to worship me.”

Mr Tate has caused concern among teachers due to the influence on teenage boys of his hyper-masculine and misogynist messaging.

Social media posts by Andrew Tate could serve as a “gateway drug” to children who go on to view more damaging content, teachers have warned.

At one school the head of performing arts Matt Adams decided to hold “Andrew Tate assemblies” due to fears over what pupils interested in the influencer are exposed to online.

Mr Adams teaches at a west London school, and toldThe Independent boys he had spoken to would either support Tate outright, make excuses for him or claim he had been misquoted.

Katherine Denkinson’s take on the influencer’s rise to infamy: Andrew Tate should have been anathema to the folks who spend half their time telling us they’re not far right. But, instead, he became a well-dressed, wealthy caricature of a successful “alpha male”, conducting high-profile TV interviews with people like Piers Morgan.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, who tweeted that she would choose Tate’s lifestyle over that of “doom-mongering eco-cultist” Greta Thunberg, later claimed she didn’t really know who Tate was, branding him “an irrelevance”. She has since decided that Tate is, in fact, a “nasty misogynist”.

Interestingly, earlier this week, Hartley-Brewer also appeared on TalkTV discussing the actions of rioters in Brazil and at the Capitol insurrection, claiming that “what happened with… Trump and Bolsonaro started on the left”.

The concept of the left being responsible for the Capitol insurrection has been around since 2021, when Republicans were pushing it to deflect from their own actions on 6 January. It has been disproven many times, yet remains strong within the QAnon conspiracy circuit who see the left and Antifa as working for the powers that be – while they represent the disenfranchised “alt-right”, a group which could feasibly claim Tate as one of their own. The Capitol claim is one of the more egregious examples of conspiracy theories making their way into mainstream news, but not the only one.

Richard Hall looks into the latest excuse from Extremely Online Men and how it has seeped into more mainstream content:

Andrew Tate, the controversial former kickboxing world champion turned social media influencer, has lost his court appeal against his detention in Romania over rape and human trafficking charges (Joe Sommerlad writes).

Eugen Vidineac, a lawyer representing the 36-year-old and his brother Tristan, who has also been detained, has insisted that “there is not a single piece of evidence apart from the victim’s statement” to back up the allegations.

Mr Tate has amassed millions of followers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok over the past decade. But he has also seen his accounts banned over inflammatory statements he has made, often appearing to advocate violence against women, which the platforms ruled violated their policies.

Frequently accused of embodying toxic masculinity and misogyny, having claimed that women cannot drive, belong in the home and are a man’s property, Mr Tate has made inconsistent statements on the subject. He told the Anything Goes with James English podcast in June 2021 that he was “absolutely sexist” and “absolutely a misogynist”, only to then claim on Piers Morgan Uncensored more recently that he was “absolutely not”.

Matthew Simpson, a 28-year-old teacher working at a secondary school in Bristol, says students are being exposed to Andrew Tate’s content in “out of context” memes online, my colleague Matt Mathers reports.

“The most popular one currently is about the colour of Andrew Tate’s Bugatti [it is brown],” Mr Simpson told The Independent. “Students don’t understand the full picture of his views and prejudices and will happily quote him.

“But then when challenged they will be entirely ignorant of the fact that the man with the brown Bugatti espouses vile misogyny daily to his millions of followers. The concern is that these bite-size chunks of content could also act as a gateway drug, into his longer more damaging content.”

More than 10 properties and land owned by companies registered to the Tate brothers have so far been seized by Romanian investigators, along with land and a fleet of luxury cars.

Ramona Bolla, spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organised crime agency, DIICOT, said that searches were taking place in the counties of Bucharest, Ilfov, and Prahova “in order to obtain further evidence.”

Mr Tate launched an appeal against seizures of his property which was rejected by a judge.