OPINION | You cannot be a Christian and look up to Andrew Tate

Foto: Andrew Tate/Twitter

“I don’t unfriend over differences of opinion. But if you’re a Christian promoting the con artist Andrew Tate when he pretends to be some kind of conservative masculinity guru, despite indisputable evidence that he is (at best) a pornographer/pimp, I’m the closest I’ve ever been to doing it”, Jayme Metzgar writes on her Facebook page.

Jayme is a senior contributor to the conservative publication The Federalist. She is the founder and president of Romania Reborn, a non-profit Christian organization dedicated to finding families for abandoned children. She believes in private charity, free markets, individual freedom and cooking with real butter. Jayme and her husband live in West Virginia and have four children.

Jayme Metzgar is the daughter of Michael Farris, former CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, an American Christian-conservative nonprofit organization that has been fighting for religious freedom, defending the sanctity of life and protecting marriage and family for more than 25 years.

“Jesus—the true and perfect model of masculinity—had some words about people like Andrew Tate:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”

Jesus is saying that you can’t always tell who’s a wolf just by listening to them talk. They can say things that sound good. They’re deceitful. So how can you tell?

BY THEIR FRUITS. Not by their sympathetic interviews with Tucker Carlson. By their fruits. By their life.

What is the fruit of Andrew Tate’s life that would give him ANY kind of platform as a thought leader for Christians, conservatives, or anyone? I’m in disbelief that any Christian over age 12 could be so undiscerning as to ignore this man’s life and look only at his words.

Again: he’s a con artist, and an effective one. He knows how to lie convincingly, and how to craft a lie for his target audience. He lies to vulnerable women to make them think he’s in love with them, so he can pimp them out for money as “webcam girls.” (This isn’t in dispute. I’ve watched his videos where he describes this vile business model very clearly from his own mouth.)

And he lies to American conservatives to make them think he’s a defender of Western civilization and manhood, so he can exploit them too. Maybe not for money, but for influence and acclaim.

OPEN YOUR EYES. You’re being conned. He’s telling you what you want to hear. Anything good he might say is something he clearly DOES NOT BELIEVE, because he doesn’t live by it. And unlike the Eastern European women Tate cons, YOU don’t have desperation or poverty as a reason for gullibility. YOU should know better.

I write this as a Christian, a constitutional conservative, and a mother of daughters, but also as someone whose 25-year orphan ministry in Romania significantly overlaps with victims of sex trafficking (both women and children). I’ve seen the utter ruin wreaked on innocent lives by these powerful, wealthy predators. They are the “evil men lying in wait for blood” described throughout the Psalms. God—the holy God who is Father to the fatherless and a defender of widows—has set His face against such men. Align with them at your spiritual peril.”

Andrew Tate has been outspoken about manipulating women to join his video chat business

On his website, which no longer exists but screenshots of which have been widely shared, Tate wrote that 50% of his employees were his girlfriend at one time and “none were in the adult entertainment industry before they met me.”

On the site, he explained a process that closely resembles the lover boy method — a human trafficking technique which Romanian authorities named when announcing his arrest.

“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together,” it reads.

Andrew Tate bragged about using women to recruit other women for video chat

In the same video, Tate explained how he would use women to recruit others.

“I’m going to find the girl, and I’m going to bring her to you, and you’re going to tell her how good it is to work for me, and how great it is to do this webcamming thing and how smart we are,” Tate said.

He said he would go on dates with women for the sole purpose of getting them to start making content for his webcam business.

“I don’t mention webcam until after I’ve had sex with the girl,” he said.

Tate has told stories of approaching girls as young as 16

Tate and his brother Tristan had a discussion on their podcast about Tate messaging a 16-year-old girl. When she responded telling Tate her age, he said he didn’t care.

After denigrating the girl’s looks, Tate said he had sex with her.

“Andrew Tate isn’t a player in a game or an avatar in an online war of words. This is real life. And if you’re hand-waving his legal charges of sex trafficking in Romania—charges I find quite believable based on Tate’s clear track record—I’m not sure we’re on the same team. And I certainly don’t want to hear you say an accusatory word about “grooming” or “trafficking” ever again.

Please take stock of Tate’s LIFE. Not just his smooth words. If you do that and can still countenance him as a role model or adviser for anyone, feel free to unfriend me”, Jayme Metzgar concludes.

What are the charges against the Tate brothers

The two brothers, Tristan and Andrew Tate, are being prosecuted by the DIICOT (Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism) on charges of human trafficking and rape in a continuous form, constituting a criminal group and assault and battery, as well as inciting others to the same acts.

Furthermore, prosecutors also accuse the two of illegally accessing the computer system and altering the integrity of computer data.

Tristan and Andrew Tate end up in court with two women. The four are accused of setting up a criminal group to traffic people to Romania, the United States and the UK.

The lover boy method and the charges in the case of Tristan and Andrew Tate

The lover boy method, which Andrew Tate was believed to have used, is probably the most common practice used to recruit women into human trafficking networks. The National Agency against Trafficking in Persons points out that this is how traffickers use a woman’s emotional attachment to exploit her.

Using the lover boy method, the trafficker will look for vulnerable people, potentially from disadvantaged backgrounds, without a stable home and with massive emotional gaps. The abuser will declare boundless love to the victim, make promises, promise a dream life and above all an emotional security that the victim does not have in her life.

“The victims were recruited by foreign nationals, by misleading them about the intention to establish a marriage / cohabitation relationship and the existence of real feelings of love (lover boy method),” the DIICOT press release states.

Once they succeeded, the girls were taken and placed in homes in Ilfov District. There they used physical violence and psychological coercion (intimidation, constant surveillance, control and the invocation of alleged debts).

“They were sexually exploited by members of the group by being forced to engage in pornographic acts to producing and disseminating such material via social media platforms”.

Prosecutors say that in March 2022, one of the victims was raped. And in October 2021, another victim refused to make any more pornography and was beaten.

Of the seven victims, three have joined the criminal proceedings as civil parties.

Andrew and Tristan Tate are currently under house arrest in Bucharest, following their three-month pre-trial detention. Their initial detention was on 30 December. Prosecutors have asked for their house arrest to be maintained pending trial.

Tribuna.US