'There’s lots of things I think he says as entertainment.'
Andrew Tate isn’t really Andrew Tate – he’s actually playing an ‘Andrew Tate character’, Andrew Tate’s lawyer has claimed.
Tate, a social media influencer famed for his misogynistic comments, is being detained in Romania on suspicion of organised crime and human trafficking.
His lawyer, Tina Glandain, has called her client a ‘free speech martyr’ and said there is no evidence of the allegations.
Asked on Times Radio yesterday if her client plays an ‘Andrew Tate character’, Glandian said: ‘Yes and it’s not even just in my view.
‘There’s certainly interviews I’ve seen where Andrew himself has said: “You know I say a lot of things, it’s satire.”
‘I’ve heard a lot of silly things, I’ve heard him talk about whether eggs are real or the fact that he’s existed for 5,000 years because you know there’s a ninja warrior inside of him.
‘There’s lots of things I think he says as entertainment. It’s his public persona and those things are not all intended to be taken seriously.’
Tate, a former professional kickboxer and Big Brother contender, has spent years building a following by glorifying capitalist wealth and toxic masculinity.
That was until most mainstream social media platforms banned him last summer for violating their hate speech policies.
He has, among other things, claimed women who are raped are partly responsible for the attacks and said depression does not exist.
In December, Tate, 36, and his brother and business partner, Tristan Tate, were arrested in Romania.
Prosecutors said in the course of their investigations, they found six women who had been sexually exploited by the suspects – both have denied wrongdoing.
Tate’s 30-day pre-charge detention has been upheld three times by a Bucharest court – he lost his appeal on Monday.
On the allegations he faces, Glandian said: ‘There is no evidence in the file of human trafficking.
‘There’s no evidence of force or coercion, or forced transport, or forced labour, or any sort of deprivation of women’s liberty, which is at the heart of any sort of human trafficking charge.
‘They have been investigated for a very long time and they have not been charged.’
The Geragos & Geragos lawyer said she’s not trying to recast Tate as a feminist, but insisted his past comments have been ‘taken out of context’.
On what he would do if a woman accused him of hearing, Tate once said: ‘It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her up by the neck.’
‘I’m not saying they’re property,’ Tate told a Barstool Sports podcast last year while puffing a cigar.
‘I am saying they are given to the man and belong to the man.’
In a YouTube video, he said he was ‘absolutely a misogynist’, called women ‘intrinsically lazy’ and said there was ‘no such thing as an independent female’.
‘I’m a realist and when you’re a realist, you’re sexist,’ he added.
‘There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.’
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