A JOURNALIST who interviewed Andrew Tate has claimed that the star told an ex he was “debating” raping her, before doing so.
Matt Shea, who interviewed Tate at his compound in Romania, also alleged that the social media influencer punched him in the face during a “sparring practice” following an interview that the former kickboxer was unhappy with.
Writing in The Times, Shea, who worked on the Vice TV documentary The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate, said that a woman who worked for Tate’s UK webcam business in 2014 told his team that she had been raped by the self-professed misogynist.
Another woman, identified only as “Amelia”, allegedly approached Shea and told him that she was also raped by Tate in 2013 a couple of weeks after the pair started dating.
The interviewer wrote: “She said that Tate raped her in November 2013, after they had been dating for a couple of weeks. At this point, they hadn’t had sex.
“They were kissing on Tate’s bed when all of sudden, she said, Tate lay back on the bed.
“‘What’s wrong?’ Amelia said. Tate then, she said, responded: ‘I’m just debating whether I should rape you or not.'”
“She went on to describe how he strangled and raped her.”
Shea also claimed that Amelia had shared texts and voice notes in which the social media star appeared to admit to the rape.
In one, Tate allegedly texted: “Am I a bad person? Because the more you didn’t like it, the more I enjoyed it. I f****** loved how much you hated it.”
Another text that he apparently sent read: “I love raping you.”
After she stopped seeing him, she alleged that he sent her a video of him breaking a baseball bat on his shin, while saying: “I am one of the most dangerous men on this planet.
“Sometimes you forget exactly how lucky you were to get f***** by me.”
Both women, as well as a third who accused Tate of strangling her, had been part of a police investigation and claimed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) mishandled their case.
The police reportedly took four years to pass their investigation, including the texts, to the CPS, who declined to prosecute.
Meanwhile, Shea also said that Tate punched him over some questions asked during their previous interview.
He claimed that Tate grew angry when pressed over his involvement in the webcam industry and if he considered his method of recruiting women to be “grooming”.
He wrote: “Later he asked if we wanted to film him at a boxing gym. When I arrived, he said: ‘Put some gloves on. I didn’t like your questions.’
“That’s how I ended up being punched in the face by Tate.”
Tate and his brother Tristan are currently behind bars in their home country of Romania as part of a probe into human trafficking, rape, and organised crime.
A decision about whether the brothers, and two alleged accomplices, will be released is scheduled to be made on February 1.
Regarding handling the rape allegations, a spokesperson for Hertfordshire Police said: “We acknowledge that there were some delays to the investigation. This was addressed at the time and apologies were made.”
A CPS spokesperson said: “We carefully reviewed all the evidence provided by the police regarding each complainant and concluded it did not meet our legal test, and there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.”
Tate has previously denied the allegations made by the webcam workers in a statement via his lawyer, saying: “They wanted money because I fired them.
“The police understood after the investigation that I am innocent and the police found messages from the girls’ phones where they were talking between themselves and planning to lie about me.”
A spokesperson for Andrew Tate told The Sun Online: “Matt Shea was in a sparring match with Andrew Tate completely willingly in the gym where others were also ‘punched in the face’ by Andrew Tate.
“He was filming a documentary and agreed to be part of a cage match, the subsequent days he was in the gym with many other participants for sparring.
“Matt was not singled out, he was not the only one sparring Tate that day, Tate also sparred Luke Barnett World Champion MMA fighter in the exact same instance.
“Matt Shea participated willingly and wanted to take part in the event.”
They added that Tate “vehemently denies” all rape and sexual assault accusations.
