It is June 2021 and Andrew Tate is teaching members of his exclusive on-line ‘War Room’ how to manipulate young women into sex work. He has recently hooked up with a girl and is working to get her onto Only Fans. Psychological manipulation is key.
“Remember what I said,” he writes. “When I’m away I go harder on my hoes.” The paying members of the War Room (which costs $8,000 per year) respond enthusiastically. A fellow named Ian, writing under the moniker ‘Blade of Wudan,’ responds: “If you are typing and not Tate right now you are wrong.”
Publicly, Tate describes the War Room as a network of men that “promotes self-discipline, motivation and confidence building while giving members access to thousands of professionals from around the world who encourage personal responsibility and accountability, emphasizing the importance of taking ownership of your choices and actions.” In private, the ‘PHD’ (Pimpin’ Hoes Degree) course is something very different. We were provided with pages of private War Room chat logs that highlight Tate’s methods. Tate even attempted to brush off questions about them in a recent interview with Piers Morgan, but they have been independently verified by the BBC.
A young woman from rural Romania named Jasmina Valentina is Tate’s latest target. She believes that Tate wants a genuine relationship with her. “Rather lose them or make them slaves in my absence,” he writes. “I’ve explained it here with the last screenshots. Told her she has to move to Bucharest (7 hours drive away from her home town) and live with me.” He posts screenshots of their recent WhatsApp conversation so the men can learn from his conversational tactics. At first, Jasmina refuses to move, saying she would be lonely. Tate says he has a place for her—not incidentally, with some “girls who work for Georgiana [Naghel],” allegedly Tate’s partner in the Only Fans business. (Naghel was later arrested along with the Tates.)
The key, Tate says, is to pick fights with the girls to keep them off-balance. He shares a series of screenshots to illustrate. “You better understand you’re here to stay and do as you’re told,” he tells Jasmina in one message. “If you’re not taking us seriously say so now.” When she replies by asking what she has done wrong, Tate escalates: “Talk to me correctly when I ask something this is your final warning.” He then accuses her of working for a sex club in her hometown, and she panics. She is vulnerable, Tate tells his followers, because she has “lost her support networks at home.”
Jasmina denies Tate’s accusation, which he tells the men he had “literally totally made…up from the sky.” He explains that he did so because “the real goal is for her to agree to never go anywhere without me. Not even her home town. I need her working. Not visiting friends back in her home town. So putting nails in that coffin saying my people there are talking bad about her.” He poses an ultimatum to Jasmina: “You are never going back to Timisoara even to visit. Without me. Understand?” She caves, confused. “Yes. I understand.” Tate ups the ante. “You don’t need to leave the house in Bucharest without either me or Georgiana. We are together. Always. We are either a couple or were [sic] not. Do you understand me?” The men taking the PHD course certainly do.
At this point, Tate’s guru Miles Sonkin—using the pseudonym Shi Yan Hui—breaks in with a lesson for everyone. If targeted girls push back, he says, they should be immediately ghosted. He shares a motto he calls the “Uncle Ben is a PIMP proverb,” which goes like this: “Pimps throughout history were responsible for the well-being and safety of their hos. In return the hos worked hard for their pimp and broke themselves (gave him ALL their money.)” That is the goal here: break the girls down, persuade them they are loved, turn them into sex workers producing revenue. In law enforcement circles, this is referred to as the ‘lover-boy method.’
Clearly feeling insecure, Jasmina sends Tate a WhatsApp assuring him that she doesn’t feel threatened by his behavior but that she wants to lay out some rules because she is “old fashioned and I do believe in God.” Because of that, she says, she will never send “a picture of me in lingerie” because she made a promise to God. “I will never do video chat or [O]nly [F]ans because my body is intimate and only my husband should be able to touch and see’; “If I give you my love I’m expecting the same thing back”; “The man I love should not hit me or beat me up.” This, Jasmina tells Tate, “is the way I was raised” and if he can respect that, she will be an entirely devoted wife for him and be “all [his] forever.”
Jasmina clearly believes that she is dating Tate and that the two of them will likely get married. Tate treats her as a target, with a single goal in mind: get her to drop her objections to doing online pornography by manipulating, gaslighting, and lying to her, while carefully screenshotting and annotating each conversation for his proteges in the PHD program. Jasmina has no idea that there are many hungry men following each conversation, learning from the way Tate isolates her, breaks down her barriers, and cuts her off from her friends and her beliefs.
“The god conviction stuff is hard to get over with religious girls,” he tells the War Room. “So it’s worthwhile I share the attempt.” This, he adds, is why he banned her from her hometown—because it is the source of her convictions. The men chime in regarding other barriers to be overcome: “God, marriage, never done it before.” One man puts it succinctly: “She’s serving 2 masters—Tate & God. Made promises to both.” Tate is dismissive. Women, he says, have no real beliefs. In Jasmina’s case, she has no money and Tate has told her he disapproves of any work except Only Fans.
“Since she’s moved … she’s been fed,” he writes, sharing a screenshot. “But nothing else. She’s broke. She can’t go home. And she can’t leave the house. Man. I sound almost evil.” He follows up shortly: “It’s comply or goodbye.”
Within ten days, he’s isolated Jasmina Valentina, broken her down, and persuaded her that Only Fans is the way to ensure that they will be together forever, traveling the world in a romantic partnership. The men of the War Room celebrate his victory, poring over the screenshots of their conversation. One participant speaks for the group: “You’re doin gods work for us younguns G @cobratate.”
Tate gives them his last lesson. “She never believed in god,” he writes. “Women never believe in anything. Women are programmed. Just have to replace the programming. Remember that. Even when she’s doing what you want her too [sic]. There’s outside forces trying to rewrite that code.” Publicly, Tate presents himself as a ‘man of God’ and a devotee of religion. But in his private comments, he sees belief in God as an irritating barrier to drafting women into the porn industry—a belief that must be destroyed.
Since Andrew Tate’s arrest and subsequent charges for human trafficking, Jasmina Valentina has publicly insisted that she is not a victim. However, it is not yet clear if she is aware that Tate used her journey into sex work as a step-by-step case study in the psychological manipulation of women for the men of Andrew Tate’s War Room seeking to earn their Pimpin’ Hoes Degrees.
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That is the private Andrew Tate. The public Andrew Tate is a cultural phenomenon: a former British kick-boxer-turned-influencer who has become one of the most Googled men in the world with more than 11 billion views on TikTok. He is the personification of various internet subcultures—from the critics of the anti-feminist manosphere to the hyper-masculine self-help gurus and pick-up artists. He has turned his influence into a steady stream of revenue, with young male customers paying for his various online courses. His popularity exploded even further when several social media platforms decided to simultaneously de-platform him, earning him interviews with the mainstream media.
But on 29 December 2022, Romanian authorities raided the Bucharest compound where Andrew and his brother Tristian live. They were subsequently charged with rape and human trafficking. The Tates have since been released from prison and are now under house arrest.
Six women have accused Tate and other suspects of running a ‘lover-boy’ scheme in which they convinced women they wanted relationships—but then forced them into performing in pornographic videos. In response to these allegations—which could put the brothers behind bars for years—Andrew Tate has launched a round-the-clock public relations campaign to persuade the conservative world that he is not only innocent but that he is, in fact, being persecuted precisely because he represents traditional values and is empowering young men to break free of “the Matrix” and the “slave mind.”
In this regard, Tate has had several high-profile enablers. On July 11, Tucker Carlson sat down with Tate for a rambling, two-and-a-half hour interview at Tate’s Bucharest compound. During the interview, Tate was permitted to mischaracterize the charges against him for the first 40 minutes, without any pushback from Carlson, after which the two men chatted amicably. Incredibly, Tate presented himself as a conservative fellow traveler (although he revealed a stunning ignorance on a range of issues from pornography to politics). Shortly thereafter, Candace Owens of The Daily Wire also travelled to Bucharest to interview Tate. Although she asked a few initial softball questions about the charges, Owens came off as wholly unprepared—and Tate once again successfully obscured (and obfuscated) the truth about his life, his motives, and his critics.
Both Carlson and Owens would have discovered the truth about Tate simply by doing a modicum of research. They did not. Although Tate claimed that he had been out of the pornography business for nearly ten years, the fact—as borne out by both War Room chat logs and his many online statements in podcasts and interview shows—is that he and his brother have continued to run Only Fans businesses as recently as 2020 and 2021. This deception would have been easily uncovered by any journalist with a modicum of experience; somehow, Carlson and Owens were misled. Consequently, Tate has been able to leverage the credibility of The Daily Wire to defend himself, utilizing Candace Owens as a ‘useful idiot.’ Incredibly, she has consistently doubled down on her position, despite comprehensive video compilations revealing the extent to which Tate exploited her ignorance, manipulating her, turning the conversation to his advantage.
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The private chat logs of the War Room reveal much of what Andrew Tate actually believes. His modus operandi is more than just an elaborate money-making scheme: it is a worldview bordering on an ideology. The ‘PHD process’—referred to by participants as “the white path”—is that worldview in action. It is the process of taking a “low exposure female”—that is, a girl with a limited public profile—and slowly and methodically guiding her, through psychological manipulation, on a path toward sex work. Money is obviously one of the incentives; financial gain, however, according to many chat logs, does not appear to be the primary motivation. The domination and subjugation of women appears to be the real ‘high’ for many participants—Tate included.
Tate claims to be a ‘traditionalist’—but, ironically, his PHD process is a deliberate inversion of the traditional relationship structure in which a man works hard to provide for his partner and family, while a woman cares for and provides for the home and the children. The PHD process reverses this dynamic, with the woman earning money—through sex work—that is then given to her male partner in exchange for sex and attention. In Tate’s world, the woman is the breadwinner, the maintainer of the home, the creator of the family; meanwhile, the man lives lavishly off the largesse provided by ‘his’ woman who spends her time selling her body online. It is a potent psychological strategy that has proven very effective for Tate and his followers.
According to Tate, the sexual marketplace has fundamentally changed—a phenomenon he refers to as “hoeflation.” Women once utilized sex for male attention. Modern women, in contrast, no longer operate this way, Tate says in the introductory video to his PHD course. Instead, they use social media to post provocative photos and videos which are ‘liked,’ followed, and commented on by millions of men (that is, “simps” or losers expressing unrequited attraction). Women are thus able to procure male attention—without having to ‘put out.’
In Tate’s view, this is a fundamental violation of the duty of females toward men and constitutes an outright war on ‘regular men’—those who he and his War Room acolytes consistently refer to as “universal victims.” It is on the basis of this that Tate asserts that women have betrayed the ‘average man’—which provides the justification for the PHD process through which men learn to exploit women so that they may, once again, use their sexual capital for the dual purposes of financial gain and sexual subjugation.
The plight of the ‘average man’ occupies a central role in Tate’s ideology. He makes constant statements about how nobody cares anymore about the ‘average man’; about how the ‘average man’ slaves away in modern society, scorned and disrespected; about how women, too, now scorn the ‘average man’ in exchange for the attention of legions of “simps” on social media. Tate portrays himself as the savior of the ‘average man,’ ready and willing to strike a blow for masculinity and restore the balance between the sexes.
This is all convenient rhetoric for Tate rather than a reflection of genuine belief, for Tate preys on the ‘average man’ as much as, or even more than the women he disparages. The desperation of the ‘average man’ is necessary to fuel Tate’s Only Fans and casino businesses—but he ingeniously hides his motivations under a veneer of masculinity and spirituality. (He claims to deeply respect Christianity, though he currently identifies as a Muslim.)
It’s important to note that the PHD process, as gleaned from the chat logs from the War Room, has both ‘rules’ and ‘distinct steps.’ The rules are as follows:
- Never attach feelings to any part of the process. Leave your heart completely out of it.
- Always aim for progression. The woman is never finished being trained.
- Do not tolerate any pushback. Any non-compliance is anathema.
- Always be in a position of dominance.
- No male friend is allowed for the female.
- Attach value to all attention given.
- Sex is a weapon, not the goal.
There are also a series of steps, which highlight the extent to which deceit, manipulation, and isolation are key to Tate’s strategy for ushering women into sex work for financial advantage:
- Create intrigue. Because traditional dating is dead, Tate advises his disciples to set up social media profiles rife with mystery and intrigue. Women, he says, no longer want traditional values; they want danger, adventure, travel, and fun. So men should set up profiles that cater to these desires. Tate explains that creating an aura of danger will draw in female prey; and he emphasizes that men do not have to ‘play fair.’ Everything on the profile can be fake if necessary. Lies are key from the outset.
- Inbox the female target. Once a social media profile is set up, the next step is to mass message many different women. Like the profile itself, the message should be intriguing: a cryptic message that means nothing at all—and does not even acknowledge the woman—can help a man stand out from the ‘simps’ who have also messaged a woman. Once she has engaged, Tate says, it is time to establish dominance. For example, back-handed compliments are key—i.e., “I’ll bet your full-time job is breaking hearts,” a statement which implies that she is beautiful but is also a dig at her personality. The goal is to get her phone number—so that the conversation can move away from social media, which Tate says is a woman’s world.
Tate refers to this view as the “Tower of Power.” Level one is Instagram, where thousands of men are messaging her; level two is WhatsApp, where there are only a few dozen; level three is a date, with access limited to a few; level four is sex, which Tate says is very difficult and thus likely restricted to someone like a War Room member; level five is isolating the girl; level six is making sure she is dependent for attention, money, and affection; and level seven is “pimping her out” by ensuring that sex work on Only Fans is the only way she get what she needs. Any girl who shows resistance or push-back, Tate says, should be abandoned immediately.
This insidious process can be seen in the story of Jasmina detailed at the beginning of this report. - Texting the girl. Once the girl is texting outside of social media, Tate says it is important to ramp up the intrigue. She should be messaged only at night for undivided attention. Texts should take place for a maximum of two days, before informing her—not asking—when and where a date will take place. At the date, the man should not talk about himself, as that spoils the mystery; instead, he should ask her about herself, so that the man may identify useful vulnerabilities. If she ‘behaves’ during the date, the man should then condition her with more attention and compliments; if she withdraws, he should shorten the answers; if she responds, he should ramp the attention back up. Tate refers to this as the “Chase Cycle,” which installs several “spells” in her mind: the man is in charge; bad behaviour is punished; good behaviour is rewarded; the man is busy and may simply walk away at any time. If she declines a date, the man should abandon the process.
- The date. The key to the first date is for the man to abruptly leave for his mysterious job just as she is beginning to enjoy herself—in order to heighten the “chase cycle.” Tate advises finding out what her “love languages” are in order to weaponize them: whatever she most desires —gifts, touch, acts of service, words of affirmation, or quality time—is what the man should use to reward “good behavior” and punish “bad behavior.” This must be learned as soon as possible so it can be used against her. Any vulnerability or intimacy is to be exploited. The predatory nature of this strategy is clear.
- Back to texting. If the first date has gone well, the man should return to texting, waiting for her to message, before pushing the discussion towards sex. Within a week, the second date should be arranged, usually in a bar or club. At that point, the man should try for sex—or, if that fails, reduce his attention. If there is no sex within a couple of dates, the girl wants a real relationship and should be ghosted.
- The PHD test. After sex, the man should withdraw all attention. This, says Tate, will reveal the woman’s “blueprint” because “low exposure” women will be shocked and caught off-guard, while more promiscuous women will be accustomed to this. If the woman responds by chasing, then she is a good target for sex work: she can be trained and her mind “enslaved.” If the girl becomes angry or ignores the man, he should simply move on. (Keep in mind that Tate advertises himself as someone who frees people from “the slave mind.”)
If the girl responds by chasing, then the next date should be initiated. This time, says Tate, the man should pretend to forget his wallet and get the girl to pay. She should be subjected to various tests to determine how “trainable” she is—and to begin the process of isolating her from family and friends (especially male ones), and to begin the process of introducing her to Only Fans and pimping her out. If she refuses, the man should ghost her and start over with another girl. Social media is full of them.
This is the essence of both the Tate worldview and the PHD course he sells (or sold) to other men. It is the reality which lies behind the image he projects online. By the third or fourth date, the women who fall for him (or his disciples) have been sold on a dream of travel, of excitement, and of conquering the world together. They have no idea that they are merely prey and that the dream that they have been sold does not exist. The more emotionally invested the target becomes, the more power the PHD process holds. It is sunk-cost economics as applied to relationships—especially as the girl becomes more isolated from her existing social networks: she either pushes back and gets ghosted or breaks under the process.
Many of the women who break end up with “Property of Tate” tattoos on their bodies—Tate has boasted that 22 girls have them thus far—and spend ten hours a day on camera, exposing themselves to make money for him while he pursues new targets. Indeed, there are threads on the War Room’s chat logs in which men, boasting about their success and their ‘ownership’ of other women, provide photographs of such women’s bodies bearing tattoos of their names.
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There is much, much more: thousands of pages of chat logs from the War Room; mountains of video evidence; testimonies. Tate insists there isn’t a shred of evidence behind the charges against him, and he continually alleges that he has been targeted because he seeks to empower young men—and because his ‘traditionalist’ views make him a threat to “the Matrix.” Part of is PR campaign now includes regularly posting long boastful paragraphs about his respectful treatment of women—despite the fact that his accusers allege he was often violent (and that he even sent recorded messages saying things like “I love raping you”).
Tate insists these accusers do not exist. And when consecutive conservative interviewers took him at his word, without investigating—as reporters should do—they failed their audiences and, in the process, enabled Tate and affirmed his loyal, adoring fans.
Regardless of whether his fans believe his accusers or whether Andrew Tate is found guilty in Romanian court, the chat logs of the War Room—as well as hours of video evidence, much of it quite recent—clearly show him to be a cruel man. As a man who has exploited women and who has—according to the accusers he (falsely) insists do not exist—subjected some to violence, Tate does not deserve to be elevated as a supposed ally in the culture wars. In fact, he is a clear manifestation of that decline. His approach of ‘empowering masculinity’ includes promiscuity and sexual aggression; and while he publicly claims to oppose the ‘slave mind,’ in private, he continues to instruct young men how to groom young, vulnerable women for the very purpose of sexual exploitation. This is not someone to admire.
The redacted indictment is available here.
