What apparently shockingly well hung my young male lead from the movie Spi Kids. But now now he's in his like thirties, so it's fine that a good intro. Sophie, is that a good intro? We spent ten minutes before the episode talking to me about the fact that the Spy Kids kid grewed up to marry Meghan Trainer and have a huge wang. Now everybody's going to know that.
I was discussing how for some reason, and Ian, who is also here, Hi, Ian Johnson, that we get on.
Twitter, we get this like at pop Crave. Yeah, that neither of us follow.
And everything I know about K pop comes from Twitter. Believing that I am incredibly interested in K pop. No, I'm just saying incredibly Twitter picks things for you to be interested in.
Yeah, just the way it was, Well, can I can?
I can?
I Just I feel like I owe it to the listeners to read, to read this.
To talk about to talk about this former child, Sophie. Former child so first off, problematic, okay.
So spy kid so so so I'm not even okay. Megan Trainer causes chatter online after discussing her painful sex with big Boy husband Darryl.
I was joking about it being I.
Can't walk after I'm going to read the whole fucking thing, thank you very much. She can't walk after sex. It's to the point where I'm like, is it all in? And he's like just the tip and I'm like I can't do anymore and I don't know how to fix that.
Why they think that's what you want to see, Sophie, that's.
Because feel bullied like this is this.
Is This is the first time that I have not been cripplingly depressed in weeks. So thank you. Yeah, no, this this really I was right on the edge there, Sophie. I was right on the edge. But learning about learning about this this former child, massive, massive meat wagon has really has pulled me through. It's my it's my prozac. Well, I felt like these people I was formerly unaware of and their sex to there.
They're also the couple that has two toilets in their bathrooms so they can shit next to each other. Which you know, all of this is fine, Well no it's not, but all of us is fine, But like, why do I have to know about it?
Why does Ian have to know about it? And why do all of our listeners have to know about it.
And I'll tell you all of our listeners have to know about it because you would not stop telling me about it.
I'll tell you what I thought they deserved a little bit of a ha ha before we got into this episode. What are we talking about Robert Evans.
Well, you know, earlier this year, right at the start of this year, we did a four parter on mister Andrew Tait because I thought people needed to know more about him. There wasn't at that point really any kind of comprehensive profile on him. Let's look at his life, you know, kind of covering the whole sweep of everything he'd done and how he got to be so influential, you know, And at the I decided that enough has happened in the months since then that it was time for an Andrew up.
Taate Wow, Chris, please please please insert some snaps snaps snaps for Robert. Please insert some snapping noise and some like little like a little applause but not too loud of applause, just like a little applya.
No no find me like a standing ovation clip from the VMA's or something. Throw that in there, like three solid minutes.
You know what, let's bring it back, find applause for Meghan Trainer performing.
There there you go, make it all connect. So, at the time we covered mon Senior Tate, he was still locked up in a Romanian jail. There was not a whole lot of good info about his early life and rise to prominence. So I had to do a lot of digging to fill in hole since there just wasn't as much out there as there is now, and what there was out there was not conveniently located in articles. It was scattered throughout literally hundreds of different video clips
on multiple different websites. Now, in the months since Andrew has Number one been released to house arrest, he's gone through Obviously, during the time he was in jail, he had a bit of a jail house odyssey of his own, which we'll talk about. And he's also attracted a huge amount of reporting resources from outlets like Rolling Stone and
the recently deceased BuzzFeed News. This has provided us with a lot more context about his early life, about kind of his rise to prominence, about you know, a couple of small mysteries that we had during the initial episodes. We did in addition to that, some of our own fans or one of our own fans has done some digging on the subreddit and they found some clips from some of Tate's videos that provided some additional context on
his backstory. So today I'm going to give you guys an update on what's gone down since we last talk, as well as an expansion of the stuff we covered last time based on some new information. Most of the new info we've received focuses on his father, Imrie Tait, and what happened between him and his family during the part of Andrew's childhood that was previously a little bit of a black box. Oh yeah, By the way, Ian and Sophie are the guests for this episode. Hello, Ian
and Sophie. We did I realized I had an interview, but yeah, no, wow, wow, back. I think brave, brave of me to introduce you twice. That shows how much gratitude I have.
You were just so enamored by that, by that big dick story that you couldn't you couldn't remember what had happened. You were digmatized.
Oh yes, his eyes got glossy and everything. Yeah.
So a lot of what I have learned here comes courtesy of a user on our subreddit chicken Stuff eighteen, who come through a bunch of again. Andrew's backstory is kind of scattered throughout hundreds of videos, many of which are lies. So some of the information in the videos this guy came up with was I found really compelling because we had kind of I talked a lot about
Emory Tait, his father, the chess legend. We mentioned kind of one unsettling story Andrew told about him, like being shoved by him, a weird story about kind of him pulling his son out of a tournament for crying. But we didn't know a whole lot about the guy in some of these videos that were brought to my attention, tape admits that his father was a diagnosed narcissist, which makes a ton of sense are Andrew's behavior yea, yeah, yeah, and he he ties Andrew in while he never like
like stops idolizing his father. He ties his father's likely narcissism to his eventual separation from the military and the fact that the family was destitute when Andrew was a kid. In Andrew's recollection of events, which probably doesn't entirely correspond with reality, but probably does correspond with what he was
told as a kid by his dad, Emory. You know, because Emory is working for the Air Force and he has an argument with a superior officer over how to like translate some sort of document that they've they've taken in, and Emory is unable to like either admit that he's wrong or like give up the argument, right, You know that kind of way that that narcissists do, where you know a thing that a normal person, even if the normal person is like, well, you know, I don't agree
with this, and at a certain point you just kind of like let it go. Usually, Emory keeps on this to the point that it makes it impossible for anyone to work with him. He is initially like forced off of his actual duties and like made to like work as a janitor. They're basically like you because of how you can't let this go, you are no longer capable of doing your regular jobs, so like sweep the fucking floor. But he continues to be such a problem that the
Air Force offers him a separation from the military. Now he has been doing this long enough that he qualifies for a pension, and his superiors are like, look, this is a messy situation. We will basically put you on disability and thus allow you to like get a pension, but you have to admit to the diagnosis that our
internal doctors have given you of narcissistic personality disorder. The phrase that Andrew uses for this, that his dad presumably told him, was that the Air Force was asking Emory to put a price tag on his sanity and he refused to do that and thus did not get a pension, and that's why the entire family wound up destitute. And you know, there's some evidence that this is more or
less what happened. Rolling Stone looked into the story. They confirmed that Emory was discharged from the Air Force in ninety two, and his biographer wrote, quote, superiors believed Tate embellished intelligence and cited a personality disorder. Now that's a little bit different from what Andrew's claiming, you know, which was that he had an argument with a superior about
how to translate a document. The way that his biographer describes it, it sounds more like Andrew was like exaggerating things, maybe for personal benefit. In any case, said biographer also notes that Emory became an alcoholic after leaving the Air Force was all which interrupted his chess career and had him kicked out of at least one tournament. Despite all of this, Andrew continues to idolize his father, portraying his refusal to acknowledge his diagnosis or accept this pension as
an act of courage. And I want to play you a clip of him talking about this from an interview he did with a guy named Patrick bet David, who I don't really totally know how to describe Patrick. He's like kind of in the weirdo right wing grind and SETI communities see in this video.
He's the dude in the back in the back in the blue jacket.
Yeah, and he's he's interesting.
I don't know. I assume one of his cronies, ye, Patrick.
But Patrick did famously an interview with Alex Jones kind of early in Alex's legal troubles. That's actually not bad. It's one of like the better early like a kind of adversarial interviews with with Alex. But anyway, here's Andrew talking about his father to Patrick bet David.
Anyway, when they discharged him, he said personality sorer. And the reason they said he had that is because he refused to listen to one of his commanders. I don't know the exact story, so I don't want to say it on tape. But he refused to listen to what his commanders about a recording on a tape, and my father was arguing with him about the translation of a certain word. My father believed it was slang for something else. Superior believed it's something else. They got to a personal beef.
It developed over months and months and months of arguments about translations, and eventually the end, my dad I ended up being told to sweep outside for eight hours a day. And then I got to the point of my father at the charge, so they discharged him. They diagnos him with Narcissi's personal disorders. The saity wouldn't listen, and they offered him this military pension and he refused it. He said, my sanity is not for sale. And I know that line because my mother used to scream all the time
when we were broke in the house. You could have had money, Emory, my sonity's not for sale.
Now we went broke, right, So I remember the bargamy.
Hemory, we could have had money, now we're broke.
So because they became a profession chess player. He couldn't pay the bills, and we were living in Indiana and South South Chicago. We were in to get with no money, so I remember him saying that all the time. So eventually my mother was it was English.
I had to move back to.
England because England has social housing.
You get freehouse and you.
Can get benefits and that kind of thing. We moved back and my father stayed there.
So I didn't see my father very much from the time I moved. But my mother was always in charge to keep me alive, and he was just in charge of like giving me the lessons and stuff. So yeah, it was an interesting life, but he was he was a super principled man, like he turned down money what was actually interesting towards the end of his life, about three or four years before he died. No, no, it must have been way before that, because I didn't have
money yet. Maybe ten years before he died. He called me and said, you know, I've been principled for so long, and the way the world's turning and what American government's doing, and maybe I should have just signed or do you think I should have just signed? Didn't say maybe sit, do you think I should have just signed? Said no doubt, no, you get to live with the pure heart. You shouldn't just sign it. Was your mother saying I should just sign it.
Now because I get back sign what exactly sign.
That the narcissistic personality, so sell his sanity and get back paid.
Audio quality terrible?
Oh, I just so a lot of people slam it, a lot, a lot of military.
I mean, you know people, that's that's that's all really interesting to me. I think parts of this are true. Back pay with stuff like disability can work kind of similarly to how Andrew describes it. I've known people who were in the military and on disability and like were later found to be at a higher level of disability and like got ten years of back pay or something. So it's not impossible that it might have worked some
way similar to this. That said, there's definitely lots of lies in here too, or at least things that Andrew's not willing to believe about his background. I think it's more on the side of lies, because he talks different ways about why they moved to England at different points in time. In other clips, he acknowledges that they didn't move because England had social housing and you know, they
were just so poor. They moved because his dad cheated on his mother and that made her leave the United States and want to return to the United Kingdom, although the fact that his narcissism was stopping them from being able to support themselves probably played a role in why she was willing to do that. We've got another clip here.
You know, it's actually funny. I'll tell you a quick story about when when my mom and dad split up, we moved to England and my.
Sister stops talking to my dad because my aus my mom was upset as I split up and my dad cheated and my.
Sister stopped talking to them.
When when my sister stopped talking to my dad, me and my brother obviously still spoke to him and he said, boys, when you're older.
You'll understand. Now I'm older, I understand.
Yeah, the girl so so.
And this is what I mean by cheating.
This whole idea of cheating to me is it's it's it's propagated by obviously Western society. It's propagated like the powerful females, this idea that no man should ever dare fuck anyone but them, and to me, it's asinine.
You're asinine. You don't mother buster.
He's just so stupid.
It was just like, yeah, man, Like if it's not uncommon for people to like bounce when they find out their partners fucking around on them like that, that's not weird. That's not like feminism, especially since it'd be one thing. Again, it's not just that your dad was fucking around on
your mom. It's that your dad led the family into gut wrenching poverty and then slept around on your mom and was gone all the time, and as we're going to cover, was definitely abusive, at least mentally abusive, and obviously we talked about him shoving young Andrew around, probably physically abusive too. Here's a clip where Andrew talks about some of the pretty profound mental abuse that Emory subjected as children to.
I remember going home to my dad and saying, hey, Dad, can have a night light. He saying no, it's like put I'm scare of the dark. And I remember he was playing chess. When I sat up scare of the dark.
You looked at me.
It was nighttime. He took my ass up to my bedroom, locked me in the bedroom in the dark, said there's monsters in their son, good luck, see you tomorrow. I screamed and cried all my I almost screaming, cried for an hour, hour and a half before I bentually fell asleep. Guess what, I never asked for our night again. I never complained again. And guess why stop being scared of the dark?
Oh my god, brave?
Yeah, fun like they're they're just supposed to be universal, you know what I mean. Like, yeah, a lot of kids are afraid of the dark. A lot of kids get over that fear. But he got over it so quickly, the most the moon.
The fastest anyone has ever gotten over being afraid of the dark by himself in an hour. And then he's just fine. And now he's Andrew Tait's Andrew.
It is so funny. It's really funny that like his dad locked him in a closet.
No, no, it's it's it's it's but it gave him a night light and told him to go to bed and shout out.
It is funny that he talked about it, That's what it's funny.
It's funny that he talked about it as like, isn't this awesome. This is like my fucking uh badass martial arts origin story, like my dad locking me in a closet. Probably, given what else we know about Emory, he was drunk and didn't want to deal with his son. It's just it's like, it's both fucked up. What's funny is like the degree to which Andrew like takes pride in it, as like this is what made me the tough, competent man I am today is being locked in a closet
at night when I got scared. So all of this, along with Rolling Stones reporting, paints a picture of Andrew as a kid who showed, I think always potential signs of becoming this kind of man. Although he might not have been sort of destined to go down I don't think he was destined to go down the path that he did. Some of the conversations that Rolling Stone had with people who knew the Tates as kids when they were in the US described very young Andrew as a
thoughtful and pretty well behaved kid. One of the anecdotes I heard him and stuck out is that during family dinners he had a lot of like younger relatives, cousins and stuff, and he was always really careful to set up the table for them, to make sure that they had all of the plates and utensils that they This was just like a thing he did without being asked, is make sure that his younger relatives were taken care of at these family gatherings and stuff that said, there
was always, you know, again, he's Emory Tait's kid. There was always sort of signs of the kind of man that he did eventually become. From Rolling Stone quote, those who knew Tate as a young man say they saw glimpses of misogynistic raggedocio and a need for attention that they never imagined it would reach this point. If this Tait is a caricature, then it's one rooted in truth and morphed out of control. The character he's created is
based on what he thinks masculinity should be. A source who knew Tait as a young man says, and this is the sad thing about it. He has been playing this character for so long that he has actually become worse than the character he portrays. And I think kind of the basis of his character is the way is Dad portrayed himself. That's the impression that I get to quote from a great band, I don't know, like that's that's that's all kind of interesting to me, I would
say so. I think like one of the things that you have to get here is there at kind of the core of Andrews both that his dad, who is this alcoholic narcissist who cannot admit his own failures and also cannot take care of his family. Andrew's never able to put down the lies that his dad kind of tells to justify this, and at the same time, when his mom leads, He's never really able to honestly process that.
And I think this sort of mythic image of his dad just becomes his kind of attitude towards what masculinity should be forevermore, this affects Tristan as well. His younger brother grows up always forgot about I. Almost everyone does because he's he's not interesting on his own and other people who knew the tapes as like boys in the UK, will claim that Tristan was kind of Andrew's lap dog
his entire life, like even as a little kid. That's certainly the way their relationship looks just from the video evidence we have today. A source described them as codependent, which I don't doubt, and said it's like Tristan is held captive by Andrew and believes or follows everything Andrew says or does. Quote Another referred to Andrew as a father figure of sorts, saying that Tristan had modeled himself and Andrew's image due to their real father, Emory, being
largely absent from their lives. And that's interesting to me. You've got sort of like Andrew, who's being this carbon copy of how his dad presented himself to children, and then Tristan being a carbon copy of that. It's depressing, like this is not the way human beings ought to live, But you know how human beings ought to live.
Off of the products and services that support the show.
That's right, and only this. Look, if there's not ads for food on for a couple of weeks, then you die. That's just the way, Yeah, it has to be.
Unfortunately, don't make the rules here and have little to no control over anything when it comes to ads, So you get what you get.
Motherfucker's sorry, and.
Stop yelling at us about it, like we can do anything about it.
Just the ads, we simply cannot.
Yeah, ah, we are all b a Q. So additional reporting has also given us new details about the tates life in the UK. The Tates' lives in the UK's Tate has claimed numerous times, what are you doing? What grammar, Sophie, I'm doing a grammar?
You're doing a grammar? Okay?
Oh I love the show.
Yeah, I'm doing a grammar. I'm doing a grammar.
All right, Well I'm doing a that's not grammar correct.
Well then you can take that up on the grammar pod launching next month, where I mainly inform people about how they can attorney's general other job titles. So let's talk about the taits in the UK. Andrew has claimed numerous times that he was bullied for being an American and mixed race. Some sources agreed that he seemed not to fit in and that this may have contributed to him feeling the need to prove himself.
That does seem extremely likely.
Oh yeah, I mean just simply simply experiencing racism as a not white kid in the UK for sure. Like, I have no doubt that that was a part of his childhood.
Yeah.
Andrew also, though seems to have exaggerated the degree to which he and his brother kind of financially struggled in their early days. We reported in our early episodes on claims that Andrew made at the start of his kickboxing career that he and Tristan had to live on like dirt, cheap, horrible, unappealing food. This like bland concoction they called flavor as a joke, and other videos tat his claim that they had to steal uneaten KFC leftovers from buckets on tables
because they couldn't get enough protein otherwise. One person who knew him early in his career said that this was bullshit. He never came from poverty. If he's saying he's gone around to nicking KFC chicken, that's a complete lie. He had a portion of Ferrari, and there are photos of the time when Andrew claimed to be living off a Pilford chicken that confirms he did have a Porsche. I actually don't think Andrew is necessarily lying here, so let
me let me explain this. Andrew has always placed huge value on visible shows of wealth, and nothing seems to do more for his ego there than displaying expensive vehicles that he owns. I can imagine him early in his sports career, getting a big prize after winning a competition. Some of them were like one hundred thousand dollars and
that's a lot of money. But given the nature of his business, it's also the kind of thing you maybe get one of those every year or even every like two years, so you know, most people would like you you have to be kind of careful with that. I don't have trouble seeing him blowing most of a year's living cash on a car that he can show off with and then scrounging for the basics of survival everywhere else, right.
Like that car to take some photos or something, and then taking it back or something like that. Yeah, it's all about appearances like that. That's yeah, that's not too far fetched.
Yeah, I think that what he might not be lying about that. One of the most compelling details from that Rolling Stone article to me is that they bring up an early reality TV appearance by Andrew that I had
not been aware of. In two thousand and nine, we talked about his appearance on that like fucking weird dating show thing, But in two thousand and nine he was on another show called Ultimate Traveler, which is a British competition where young people in Indonesia like backpacked on camera and they had like different sort of challenges where who can get to this place fastest, you know, on foot or using public transit or.
Whatever and make amazing race.
Yeah, it seems like it was a kind of a discount amazing race. The prize was like ten grand and it seems to have basically been like backpack, very simple backpacking challenges and they kind of voted you had like the prize went to whoever, like the other contestants voted had done best. Anyway, here's Andrew's first introduction there. My plan is to lie and cheat my way to his competition. Once another left, time it returning. Yeah, so that's that's Andrew.
You can you can see at that early stage he's already kind of settled on a vision for the character of himself. He's the bad guy who gets results. He's not constrained by the ethics of lesser men. He'll lie and he'll cheat, but there's also this kind of like necessary humility he has to show because he tries, he's trying to break into TV. This is a show where, like everyone on it is like an inexperienced traveler, which is a little more, a little more vulnerability than he
would admit to kind of in the present day. Here's a clip of him from that show that's a bit longer. Twenty one year old Anglo American Andrew Tait is a straight talking entrepreneur with his own advertising company in Luton.
I'm very mentally strong.
If I want to achieve something, I will achieve it, because I've never been in a situation in my life so far in my twenty one years where I really wanted something I didn't get it. I'm not sure what my fellow dramas we like. The worst kind of people would need to be two faced people, which is undoubtedly going to happen at some point during this trip. People who seek attention and anyone who thinks are exceptionally smart or exceptually physically capable and.
They have nothing to back up. It's gonna quick a get my nerves. He just described himself.
Yeah it is. It is funny that he just described himself. Oh my god, Yeah, that's I.
Don't really want to like comment on his appearance or anything, but he does look like he looks like a slim gym.
He does look like a Slimjym Sophie because he looks like you would snap into him, right, yeah, yes, and I do mean that in a sexual way.
I was I did not, but okay, yeah, yeah, I'm.
Just saying he had more He had more twink energy in this era than he does today.
It looks like a Slimjym.
Yeah, yeah, like a Slimjym. So. One person Rolling Stone interview described his overall attitude on the show as desperate, specifically desperate to be seen as the baddie. He's not as good at portraying himself that way as he will eventually become. Quote. This was not the impression that several
people who worked in the show had of Tate. One source close to the production described him as hypersensitive, recalling an incident where he, during a bandana making challenge, blew up at another contestant who gently mocked him for getting paint everywhere. He seemed a little bit insecure. To be honest with you, they say he just wanted to fit in. Contrary to his extremely libidinous womanizing persona, Tate did not seem like a ladies man and was rarely seen in
the company of women. Another source close to his reality TV career says, I don't think he's a guy likes being around women. If that makes sense, They say, it sure does, and it's it's because, like again, Andrew likes to be seen around women. But Andrew also does not have like the kind of self confidence or ability to uh the or ability to like interact with people on anything that like could be approaching a level of equals.
Like he cannot be around women who are not there because they need something from him, right, because they're vulnerable to him.
Well, Robert, he was the first kid to be the quickest to be no longer afraid of the dark, So that's true. Yeah, ladies, this guy not afraid of the dark.
Yeah, no, yeah, he just like seems like the kind of guy who like wants to be seen with women all the time, but he hates women, so of course he like can't like have a meaningful conversation with any one or will actually have to interact with them. He just wants to be seen with beautiful women, but he hates women, Like.
Yeah, yeah, he definitely like he's also afraid of them though, right, we'll talk about this a little bit later. It's not just that he like hates women, it's that he's scared to be around them if he's not in total control of them, because women have the ability to embarrass you. It's this kind of thing. It's also the ability, you know.
I don't think he's ever gotten over the fact that his mom left his dad, because it kind of if he processes that, it kind of completely shatters this image of his father because his mom left, not just because his dad cheated, because his dad couldn't do the things that you're supposed to do as the quote unquote ahead of the family, right, he's not taking care of shit, and so like that that, like it's the same we're seeing Stephen Crowder, who's was is now much less of
it was a very big right wing personality, has just there's this ongoing blow up in the Daily Wire kind of far right sphere where all of his former friends are like rolling on him. But one of the things that's come out is that his wife is divorcing him, and he went on a long rant about how this is only possible because the state of Texas allows one party divorces. Right. Basically, if a woman doesn't want to be married, she can leave. And he hates a lot
a lot of men on the right hate this. And Andrew hates this because, among other things, it means that like they have the freedom to embarrass you, is the way he's see And I'm not saying people should be embarrassed. The marriages don't work out, that's fine, you know, that's life. But that's how he sees it, right, Ah, that's actually so funny. It's really fun I mean, yeah, it is funny. It is funny because he's a piece of shit.
It is funny because he's a piece of shit. Also, embarrassing men is a great hobby and I encourage.
It too many.
It's critical stuff. So yeah, it's kind of worth noting that, like his initial life goal, right, he's martial arts. I do think he never really saw martial arts as much but a stepping stone. Maybe there was a point at which he thought he could be like a big celebrity through it, but it became pretty clear early on he does not have the kind of charisma that was going to make that possible. He's also not good enough at
working with people. I think, like, you know, look at a guy, you know, fucking Dave Batista, right, who comes out of the m M A world and became a great actor, famously good at working with people. I think that's generally the case with those folks. Andrew's just like he's an ass He's a giant asshole.
And like and like he wasn't good enough to be you know, like that's just not happening.
Yeah, you can get away with being the giant piece of shit if you're a fucking back at it, right, Yeah, Yeah, but he just isn't. He's not like a Mike Tyson, right. Mike Tyson can get could get away with some ship because he was very good at punching people. Certainly, Andrew Taits just kind of made it punching people. So before settling on social media and you know, kind of being a weird online discord cult leader, his first clear goal was to become big on reality TV and then parlay
that celebrity into a larger career. He decided the best way to do this was being seen as aggressive and dangerous, which is also funny because like I think about two of the three of really the biggest kind of people to come out of combat sort of sport type dealies and go into acting in the recent past, and like obviously two of them are you know, pro wrestling, which
is very different from MMA. But like, you know, you look at Dave Batista, you look at the Rock, you look at oh, what's his name, the guy in Peacemate.
Yeah, Johnson is like his own kind of thing.
But yeah, it is It is interesting to me. His attitude is like, well, if I want to break in as a big celebrity, people have to see me as the dangerous asshole. Well, like all of the big celebrities that came in through like fighting kind of media are like famous for being really pleasant. That's a huge part of their brand is them, is them being seen done like the most.
Make a wishes of all time, and like it's just like the chill is dude. Of course people love him.
Yeah, it's a and it's interesting, like how kind of out of the zeitgeist he is. There was a time, you know, look you can look at like Steven Sagall, right, who also comes out of kind of fighting sports, right, and it was famously a giant asshole and a psychopath and a rapist a lot like Andrew Tape. But that
was a really different era. Right by the time Andrew was trying to break in to stardom, we in the West have decided that when we when we make a big fighting guy into a celebrity, we want him to be like a friendly giant as opposed to a crazy asshole. Yeah, that's just where we are now. You know you can you can take what you will from that. Anyway. I found a story about Andrew in one of these articles that I think says a lot, like kind of reinforces the point we were making about how he feel his
awkwardness around women. There's a story in the Rolling Stone Report about a woman who visits him. Who visited him in Tristan in their home for a party in like two thousand and nine, and described him very differently from how he's usually described. She said it was a really good time at first Andrew hanging out with her and her friends. He gives her like a boxing lesson. She's having a lot of fun with him, but he's also
kind of like a weird guy. She noted that he was like there wasn't like much interesting or creative about him, Like he knew how to fight, but he didn't really have much to talk about, and he kept kind of like going over the same lines, talking about his Porsche, talking about his championship, belts, and after a while they decided to, like, you know, this is the UK, take the piss out of him a little bit, right, So they she and a friend do a photo shoot in
front of his Porsche with like posing with his championship belts and dressed they dressed his punching bag and girls clothes. Right. They were like fuck around with him a little bit, you know, And they posted this ship on Facebook and he blows up like what sounds like a very scary, like like like rage episode. He's cursing at them, calling them bitches. You get the feeling he's kind of at least being physically threatening, although they certainly don't say that
he like attacked them. But like so they leave and they never see him again. But it's one of those things where like he's kind of the instant he's laughed at, he he's like that that just absolutely destroys any kind of self control he has. The the the mere fact of a woman laughing at him is the thing that like devastates this man, I don't know, says a lot.
Well, so many women have laughed at him since.
So yeah, yeah to suck man, And it's one of the again, like one of the one of the best things you can uh be as a guy, uh if you if you are interested in like not not being a creepy weirdo is not flip the fuck out when people laughing because it happens so well.
Is a skill I think more people need to develop.
Yeah, it it it. It really deeply unsettles people when like you do something silly and they laugh at you, and then you act like a psychopath like that makes people think that you might murder them.
It's generally not fun to be around those kind of people.
Yeah, it's a you know, we live in the society we live in. You should you should put a lot of focus into being someone who doesn't doesn't give off I might murder you vibes. It's important. Yeah, a good rule of thumb. Don't seem like you might murder people. They don't like that. But Andrew again, Andrew's whole ego is like wrapped up in seeming like a person who
might murder you. Bad way to make friends in my opinion, Andrew, So, I think a thing I didn't get across well in my earlier episodes was this kind of added context, which I think what it makes under deniable. Is this vast emptiness at the center of Andrew, right, Like that's what these two girls claim, is that, like, you know, they think it might be fun to hang out with him at first, but there's just nothing there. All he's got
to talk about. All he's got within him is these kind of visual signifiers, these belts in this car of success. But there's like nothing he's not about in eustance. There's no substance. Now we get some different stories from girls who knew him when he was younger about like how he got rich. His earlier girlfriend, a woman named Sveete, who a couple of news agencies have talked to, says that he got rich not from manipulating girls into camming,
but via kickboxing and crypto. That may have been a lie that he told her to disguise that he had earned his money via camming. It's a little unclear to me, but I'm gonna quote again here with her. She says he adopted the persona of a family man. He would just say he was looking for a sincere girl with a pure soul to start a family and have three to five children with, she says. Indeed, Set says Andrew was particularly obsessed with getting her pregnant and insisted on
having sex with that protection. He talked many times about giving her pregnant and having her raise his children, she says. A spokesman for Tate says Andrew vehemently denies any allegations that suggests he urged previous girlfriends to have unprotected sex. So that's you know. I feel like we have to put that in there for legal cases, but it is like interesting to me. All of this context I think fills him out and makes him a sadder example of
a person. It seems like his decision to become an influencer and effectively create a cult around the image of himself as a business guru and philosopher came after he was kicked off of Big Brother as a result of the rape allegations against him. We can pretty definitely say that he exaggerated his claims of wealth at varying points. In various videos, Tate claimed to be worth seven hundred million dollars and sometimes to be the world's first trillionaire.
Romanian police were able to confiscate it about four million dollars worth of assets. Now, I don't doubt that he had more than that obviously it's not hard to hide stuff, but I don't think it was anywhere close to seven hundred million, let alone to trillion dollars now. His former girlfriend also notes that he regularly claimed to be on a tight budget, perhaps due to all the money he had to spend on the fancy cars and the rolexes
and other signifiers of wealth. Whatever the truth, the source of most of his money grew to be subscriptions to his various online schools and the war Room, a series of private discord rooms for people who described as his insiders aka anyone with five thousand dollars they who were related to give to Andrew Tait. In videos I watched, he tries to portray the war Room as like his the new Illuminati. You know, these are the most influential
men you've never heard of. They're gonna get They could get me out of any bad situation I got into. If I get into a problem in any country, they can pull me out of it right away. You know, I have connections everywhere. They'll take vengeance on my enemies for me. Leaked chat logs from the war Room reveal more pedestrian realities. There's a video of a guy who enrolled in the War Room and presumably spend all that money and did a vlog review of his time there.
Uh.
And he describes what the organization teaches as telling members how to become a quote pimping guy who looks down on women, uses them and abuses them and manipulates them to get what he wants.
Uh.
He provides a screen grab of a member of the War Room telling other people how to coerce their partners on camera to like have sex on camera. Like it's it's that sort of stuff. Like it's not you know, these James Bond types all talking about how to manipulate the stock market. It's guys being like, here's how to sexually assault a woman in profit from right, that's yeah, how to be a predator and yeah, like also, also, guess who Guess who was a member of the war I guess still is a member of the.
War Lets tell us I'm excited. I'm so excited.
Jacob Wool incredible. Yeah, the Internet's favorite idiot boy whose only backstory? Again, Andrew's talking like these he talks about these p people like their fucking captains of industry and like former spices. Jacob Woll's entire career is repeatedly failing at obvious political scams and then getting sued, like nearly into destitution for attempting and failing to manipulate an election with a series of robo.
Calls like great, great catch, getting kid Grifter, like yeah.
Yeah, getting the guy who, in like five different videos posed with the same cigar. People proved it was the same cigar by looking at markings on the wrapping, because he doesn't actually smoke them. He just wanted to be seen holding against like and he didn't have the money to buy more than one. It's all about appearances with these It's all about appearances. And that's the thing with all these fucking guys. For whatever reason, cigars are a big part of it. I'll say this for Andrew, like
I am a guy who smokes cigars. Andrew actually does appear to smoke his cigars like he does it enough, like he does it like a guy who like it. Stephen Crowder does the same thing, and so does Ben Shapiro, and I think they both hate cigars like they do not They are like they're doing it like it's miserable to them, like they're kissing a sake, I will say I think Andrew actually does enjoy that, so I'll say that for him. But you know that's not praise or anything.
It just means some other guys are even sadder. Another guiding ethos of the war Room is achieving autonomy from the matrix by obtaining multiple passports and citizenships. Screen grabs of twenty nineteen war room chat logs obtained by Rolling Stone appear to show the war Room instructing men how to do so. In one screen grab, a user identified as Tate outlines a project to help people obtain multiple passports. Pay a price, send old ID passport in the mail.
We'll let you guys know as soon as we're live. So yeah, there's like pictures. Tate has posted pictures of like his fake IDs, or what appeared to be his fake IDs, and he's bragged about collecting passports to flee from the law in different countries, which is part of why after his arrest, his one month stay in jail
was extended three times. If you brag repeatedly about your access to private jets and multiple passports, that provides the government with a really easy case to describe you as a flight risk.
I've seen enough episodes of law in order to know you shouldn't flaunt that kind of stuff when you're gonna go to jail.
No again, an actual a dude who is the real version of what Andrew pretends to be and thus has a bunch of fake IDs and shit because he's doing crimes, never would talk about it. I never mend not a fucking word. No, like watch heat. That's how you handle
this sort of shit. You don't brag about it on fucking TikTok so Andrew, you know, once he gets locked up, this is at the end of last year, kind of goes very quickly from this sort of James Bond Man of the World, uh International, Man of Mystery type of branding to unhinged tweets that he's like sending out via an intermediary. Like he goes like immediately from like I am the business you know, guru, influencer ladies man to like I am fighting ghosts in my jail cell. My
favorite example is this from February twenty fifth. I was awoken last night by an icy chill and identified a ghost in my prison cell. He was terrified and begged me not to annihilate him. I sent him back to hell with a message for the demons. I am always ready.
That's just like how broken his brain is. Like even in these like fake scenarios, he just has to be like the ultimate like badass, like unfazed, like he's I can beat up ghosts.
Basically, yeah, I can fight ghosts. It is funny that he's gone right back to bragging about like, no, my dad locked me in the fucking closet.
I fought the ghosts off on my own Andrew. Okay, buddy, that was actually that was actually Tristan just beating up his brother in jail, wailing on him.
I love it. You know who would beat up their brother in the dark.
Hmm.
Every sponsor we have for this podcast.
Okay, I'll take it.
Yep.
H ah.
We're back and we're talking about Andrew Tait in jail. There were a lot of funny moments from his uh, his jail, his his his his letter from a from a Romanian jail. At one point, his representative claimed that he had been diagnosed with cancer and he needed to go to Dubai for surgery. This was like publicly they were saying this all of their fans to try to generate outrage, like he's gonna die in jail. They're killing him. This is a murder attempt now, the Romain government. He's
in jail. They're not even I say I wrote tapped his phone calls. He's in jail, They know what he's saying on the phone, right, just the way that any jail system does, right, Like if you're talking, like that's the way it goes. Yeah. Uh so they and anyway the calls that they listen to in them, he is discussing like Dubai as a potential route for him to escape from This is like claims made by people in
the Romanian law enforcement. Uh and since the UAE doesn't like extradite to Romania, this makes sense but also kind of backs up the government's claim that he can't be released once this stuff leaks. Tate like that once the like claims come out that like he might be sick, there's a shadow on his lung. Tate was unable to handle the idea of people thinking he was sick, even though this was an important part of his escape strategy,
because again, sickness implies unacceptable vulnerabilities. So he posts, they can't have that, Oh my god, no, no, he posts this. I do not have cancer. My lungs contain precisely zero smoking damage. In fact, I have an eight liter lung capacity and the vital signs of an Olympic athlete. There is nothing but a scar on my lung from an old battle. True warriors are scarred both inside and out.
Oh my god, he's so funny.
It's so funny. By the way, Yeah, I can't get cancer. It's scared of me. Oh, I'm going to I'm going to continue what he puts in this thread. As one of the most influential men on the planet, and is important for the good of humanity that I live as long as possible. At my current strength levels, I estimate to survive for at least five thousand more years. With this in mind, I take my medical care extremely carefully.
I had a regular checkup organized in Dubai predetention. The doctors were extremely interested in the scar on my lung. They do not understand how I survive without treatment. They do not know the secrets of Wudan. But this battle has long passed. He attached this photo and the thread.
Sophie, I'm so sorry that I have to show you this oh buddy.
It's it's just him doing a high kick and posing in front of a mirror in his gym and his underwear. Oh my god, he's gonna flex the cancer away.
And this guy is worried about women laughing at him, stopping hysterical.
He's gonna live to be five, Sophie. He's going to be the emperor of mankind.
That's so cool. Women five thousand years from now will still be.
Yeah, oh my god, yeah, they they will have evolved beyond gender, and they'll still be laughing at him. They will be living as like mental energy, flying through the ether and laughing at him.
For someone with such a fragile ego and who's clearly like really obsessed with like looking powerful and strong, it's just giving us so much fodder to make.
Fun of him with. That's like, Mike, it's so funny. He's doing it to himself.
Funny.
Hmm. It's true, and that's what really hurts.
So.
Reporting based on sources within the Romanian judicial system suggests that Andrew directed a support campaign and may have intimidated witnesses from inside jail. From an article by BuzzFeed News, rip Romanian authorities also said that the Tates have encouraged their army of followers to message at least one alleged
victim demanding she retracted her accusations. These comments are of a nature to provoke in the victim a state of fear as a result of the threatening tone they have in addressing her, attempting to determine her to change her statements regarding the accused in the case. The judge noted in the February summary. On top of this, in December, a US law firm representing the brother sent to cease
and assist to a woman in Florida. This is the woman who he had been holding against her will, whose mother contacted the FBI, who contacted US authorities to free her, which is what started this whole series of investigations kind of mid last year against any Tate that led to his arrest. So he Romanian authorities are at least looking
at this as intimidation. Andrew's lawyer, Tina Glandion number one, has said that her firm had no part in sending this cease and desist, but obviously a lot of Andrew's a lot of the harassment being directed against people who have made accusations against Andrew has occurred in a somewhat decentralized manner. Andrew was stoking it, and he's certainly talking. You know. The Romanian authorities say he is directing his representatives to kind of incite harassment campaigns by his fans.
But it's not as simple as just like, oh, yeah, somebody paid someone to go do this. You know, he has people who are willing, who, once riled up, will go and take action. There's evidence that at least one fan attempted to track this woman down in her home in Florida. Thankfully he did not succeed, but there is ample evidence that other fans have executed far reaching harassment campaigns on women who have spoken out against him. We
talked about Daria Gusa on our last episodes. Who She was the young Romanian woman who, when she was a child was contacted by Tate in an attempt at grooming her. She says after talking to the BBC for the article we cited, she received numerous threats in including a guy who found her phone number, texted her and said that he knew where she went to college and had her class schedule.
Jeez.
Daria claims that because of this harassment. Several of her friends, who also had contact with Tate refused to talk about it. Quote, it's not just the people who work for him, it's that there are basically millions of men out there who really idolize these people and would do anything to protect them in their image. So I think it's completely justifiable
that so many girls don't want to speak out. BuzzFeed's reporting also sheds more light on one of the women arrested with the Tates, a former Romanian cop named Radhu, who is suspected of using her position to gain a legal access to a classified police database over most of
twenty twenty two. A judge noted that quote, it would be impossible for the accused to access the database without support from others, which might be seen to suggest that some Romania authorities believe a broader conspiracy exists with among members of their law enforcement agencies. That said, this all doesn't necessarily mean that there's some like hidden Tate Cadra inside of Romanian policing. This could and probably is. I'm
going to say this is the most unlikely explanation. Radhu is really devoted to this guy, partly maybe because she's in love partly because there's financial benefit here and she's bribing her colleagues for specific favors. Right, this is a known problem that Romania has bribery among public officials. There doesn't have to be like some secret like Cadra of Tate supporters within Romanian policing for this to have happened. Rod Who just needs to have thrown some money around
at any rate. Buzzfeeds reporting suggests that rod Who may have helped quash earlier allegations in Romania against Andrew. In addition, prosecutors said they had obtained new information from the police unit local to the Tate compound suggesting that women had filed multiple complaints of violence, coercion and abuse against the brothers that predated the current case. These complaints have gone unresolved,
giving rise to bision of undue influence from Radu. So basically the thing he only got in trouble this time, Like this whole chain of events started because he was allegedly keeping that woman from Florida held against her will, and her family contacted US authorities and that got the ball rolling on all of this. But there were claims from an in Romania and attempts to report to the police earlier that this Romanian cop quashed. Because she's on
Andrew Tate's team, she's profiting from this with him. There are also allegations that prosecutors make that Tate ordered his team to reach out to two right wing Romanian politicians. Both of these guys are like big gender politics, culture war dudes and COVID deniers. One of them is on Ukraine's sanctions list for spreading Russian propaganda. And basically, I mean, here's the quote from Tate to talking to his assistant to telling her what to say to the two politicians.
If you take the side of the guys when they get out of prison, they will make sure you were rewarded for telling the truth. That's what he told his assistant to say to these these politicians. Now, to be fair about that, like both of these right wing politicians seem to have seen where the wind was blowing because
they didn't. They did not agree to work with him, and in fact, when asked by local media if they were willing to defendate, they said no. So it kind of seems like this was a Again, part of Tate had this kind of belief that you know, I went between my money and my connections, I can make anything happen. But he flew too close to the sun, like there's
this this, this whole thing blew up too big. So when he reaches out to these guys who normally would have loved to be associated with him, they're like, no, bro, you fucked up. Like number one, cops are listening to everything you say, like we don't want to We're not let's start there. Number two, you are in a lot of trouble and we don't want to be associated with you. That's not smart. When you put all this stuff together, it might be seen as somewhat surprising that the brothers
were finally released from jail and house arrest. Reporting does suggest they're under heavy watch there, so they're unable to leave the country with ease, but still why were they released from jail? In an official summary of a late February court review, the judge, who had been on their case from the beginning, claimed that there were new reasons to keep the brothers incarcerated based on the government surveillance of their calls, and I found this in an article
in the Guardian. The accused present a clear danger for public order. They made preparations to evade criminal investigation by leaving Romania and are trying to influence witnesses and are exerting pressure on the victims. But a month or so later, two different appeals court judges, both of whom were new to the case, approved the move to house arrest. There doesn't seem to be a good explanation as to why
this happened. Buzzfeeds reporting claims that there's a lot was a lot of anxiety at the move in official circles. It's hard for me to say what's happening here, what is going to occur. There are reports from like the judges who are still on the case that the information that's come out and that the attempts to influence witnesses
by Tate have prejudiced judges against their case. Quote. One experienced Romanian justice system insider who requested anonymity, told BuzzFeed News that Andrew's various missteps while in attention dimmed from the influencer's need for public attention and his compulsion to arouse controversy. I think Andrew Tate is not the most intelligent guy, the insider said, but he probably can't help himself and it's again kind of unclear to me, you know.
I think a lot of people were like, this is a bad sign that they've released him into house arrest. It was kind of unprecedented for them to hold him before indicting him for three months, so it's not entirely weird that this has happened. He is still like basically waiting for the indictment, which should come before June, kind of based on the letter of Romanian law, they have to make a move kind of before June, so we
will see what happens with that. I do want to talk a bit about the person that Andrew was hired to run his legal case, who is an American lawyer named Tina Glandian. Tina has made a career of working for high profile.
He hired a woman.
Yeah, yeah, she is a surprising well in part in some ways a surprising.
But not surprising in terms of the p R.
Yeah.
Well, and she's also she she is the disgraced celebrity lawyer. Her past clients included Her past clients included Jesse Smollett, so that wasn't a win that she Also she was not the primary lawyer for but her boss was, and she helped with Chris Brown. She was like representing them, and she also represented Kesha in one of Kesha's lawsuits against her former producer, which went a lot better. So obviously this woman, you know, you win some, you lose some.
I found a very puffy pr piece first of all. I mean, yeah, that case she was in the right. I found a very puffy pr piece about her on a website called Dan's Papers that included this quote. Glandian's legal counsel has proven invaluable to countless celebrities, professional athletes, and entertainers. Her list read like boldface names splattered on page six, representing a listers such as Kesha, Mike Tyson,
and Chris Brown. Glandian was also the lead attorney in the Michael Jackson v. Extra Jet case after Jackson's charter jet was illegally wiretapped. I am inspired by a desire to help people, particularly the underdogs, Glandian says. The feeling that someone is relying on me to tell their story or to right or wrong is a great motivator. I strive to give my clients a voice and to be their most zealous advocate. So you know, she sounds nice.
She also claims to be a dedicated woman's rights activist. In times when Glandein is not conducting business or trying cases, she is an outspoken advocate and a champion for women's rights both nationally and internationally. She's a un representative for the Armenian International Women's Association and part of the Commission on the Status of Women.
So that's when I heard women's rights activist. I think lawyer who helped Chris Brown.
Yeah, look, you know, take that paycheck right, you can represent women like girl, don't. No, you gotta get paid first, Sophie got to get paid first, and then you can represent Kesha briefly but successfully. So since being released from jail, Andrew has continued to post the funniest post I found
from him. Since his release, he's uploaded a like a picture to Twitter of a bunch of little electric scooters, like ten of them in the walden yard of his compound because he's on house arrest, with the text, they raided my house and took all my cars, so I bought ten new bugattis So that's sad. He still maintains his absolute innocence and says there's a zero percent chance
of him being found guilty. One video showed him walking around a room in his house smoking a cigar while he says, since last year, I've been in twenty four hour lockdown, no yard time, pacing a three meter cell with zero electronics, are outside contact, absolute clarity of mind, real thoughts, real plans, vivid pain, one hour home and I can't stand my phone. Some habits die hard, We must defeat Satan.
Like what is he even talking about?
Some habits die hard, We must defeat Satan. I mean it sounds like a guy.
I mean, he says, because he's like doing a doing a doing a Muslim thing, which I still don't know how serious he is about this, but like I am still kind of I'll be honest with you. It is unclear to me if he's trying to play this right, like if he's if this is like if he thinks that this is a smart play, or if he's actually coming on glued. And I guess we won't know that for a while. I mean, I don't see this all seems weirder than some of it. He's always had bits
of this, just like martial arts. Mysticism has always been a piece of him and a piece of his like his like public profile. It's so much more now than it was before.
I mean, I think I think there's only one logical conclusion here is that the ghost won the.
Ghost one that he's being piloted by the ghost. It's driving his meat. Yeah, I think that's the truth. That's the truth.
Well keep us posted.
Yeah, all right, Well that's that's the Andrew uptate. I hope you all have had a good time.
It wasn't as bad, I guess, no.
No, it's mostly funny. We'll be back Thursday because I found some books Andrew wrote and we'll be talking with Sharen Lana Yunis about those. But until then, you can find us in various places on the internet. I have a book called After the Revolution. You can just type it into wherever you find books. Ian you had anything to plug.
Uh no, I mean, you know, just cool zone media, keep keep it moving. I'm on Twitter and Instagram, young Hershey, y u n G. I don't really tweet or post that much anymore these days, but I'm thinking about trying to get back into it. Maybe the fans will give me some inspiration.
So oh yeah, posting is always a good idea.
Coward.
Yeah no, yeah, maybe you guys will get me back, like terminally online, So let's do it.
Oh, actually, don't follow you in. That sounds bad.
That's the life we want for you. I think I would get I think you can sue me if I tried to urge you to become online again.
Yeah.
I think that's like a hostile work environment.
That doesn't sound safe.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's the episode.
Go to hell.
Bye, I love you Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.