Lauren Southern, a former alt-right YouTuber and influencer, alleges in her forthcoming memoir that she was sexually assaulted by manosphere influencer Andrew Tate.
In an excerpt from the book This Is Not Real Life, which she published on Substack, Southern alleges she met Tate in 2018, when she was invited to Romania, along with the far-right conspiracy theorist Tommy Robinson and two other travel companions, to discuss the possibility an investment in a media network with Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan. At the time, Southern did not know who they were and had simply been told they were “wealthy crypto investors in Eastern Europe.” According to Southern, when the Tates met them at the airport, Andrew was “flirtatious” yet polite, and it immediately became clear that the Tates were interested in meeting only to discuss launching what she describes as “a crypto pump-and-dump scheme.”
After the meeting, which Southern says was unproductive, she and her team returned to her hotel room, at which point the Tates allegedly messaged her, inviting her back to their compound outside Bucharest to speak further. Despite her reservations, she says, she agreed and then the brothers called for a car to take them to a nearby nightclub, promising her their friends would meet up with them later. At the club, she alleges, she had a vodka-soda and a shot before becoming severely intoxicated and vomiting. She says Andrew then carried her into his sports car and took her back to her hotel room, where he allegedly climbed into bed beside her and kissed her before sexually assaulting her.
“He put his arm around my neck and began strangling me unconscious,” Southern writes. “I tried to fight back. He repeatedly strangled me every time I regained enough consciousness to pull at his arms. I’d prefer not to share the rest. It’s pretty obvious.”
According to Southern, when she returned to the U.K. with her crew, she reported the alleged assault to the authorities, who told her that she could only file a report in Romania; the same thing happened, she claims, when she reported it to authorities in her home country of Canada. “While I’m sure plenty would like to claim the investigation into Tate is a deep-state operation, if anything, the state didn’t help at all,” she writes. “They honestly didn’t seem to give a shit.” She was reluctant to file a report in Romania, she writes, because the Tates had told her the country was corrupt and that the police were “paid off.”
Later, Southern says, she received leaked messages from Tate’s private chat group the War Room, in which he appeared to be bragging that Southern and her associates had been invited to Romania under false pretenses. “We didn’t invest a fucking penny,” he allegedly writes. “Dropped her at the hotel. Invited her for steak — she came. Then the club — she came. Then the house — she came.” In the excerpt, Southern wonders whether the trip had been a “setup,” asking, “Was I trafficked? What the fuck?”
A representative for the Tates declined to comment on the record, directing us to a statement Tate made addressing Southern’s claims on social media. “Chooses the chapter about me to release ‘for free’ to get attention so she can sell her memoirs of promiscuity,” he writes in a reply to one of Southern’s X posts about the Substack excerpt. “Coincidence I’m sure.” Through his attorney Joseph McBride, he has denied Southern’s allegations: “Andrew Tate unequivocally repudiates the pathetic filth peddled by Lauren Southern in her pitiable tome,” McBride writes in a statement on X.
Tate, a former kickboxer and reality-TV-show contestant who pivoted to manosphere influencing in 2016, frequently refers to himself as “Top G” and spouts misogynistic advice on podcasts. He is currently facing charges of rape, human trafficking, and assault in his native U.K. as well as trafficking and money-laundering charges in Romania, where he and Tristan are currently under investigation and house arrest. The Tates have denied all charges.
Southern rose to fame in the late 2010s for her anti-immigration and anti-feminist views before abruptly disappearing from the right-wing space in 2019. In her post, she says she has watched with horror as the man who allegedly assaulted her has been hailed as a martyr by conservative media figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
“What I don’t understand is how the right-wing media in particular could make a hero of this man after all the evidence of his character had been released,” she writes. “Conservatives, even just a hundred years ago, would have strung up people in the streets for less than what the Tate brothers do on any given weekend. Men then understood that part of building a strong society is protecting people, especially young women, from predators and pimps.”
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