Controversial social media influencer and former reality TV star Andrew Tate was banned from meta platforms Facebook and Instagram on Friday.
Tate, 35, has been banned for violating Meta’s policy on dangerous organizations and individuals, according to the BBC. Before he was banned, Tate had over 4.7 million followers on his Instagram account @cobratate.
The former kickboxing champion spoke to popular Twitch streamer Adin Ross about the ban.
“I sympathize with their position,” Tate said. “It’s not a big loss for me. It’s not something I use too often.”
“I’m kind of relieved because the real world is such a beautiful place. The fewer things on my phone, the less I have to look at. I just get in my supercar and drive off.”
During Adin Ross’ Twitch stream, Andrew Tate revealed he allegedly doesn’t know what caused his Instagram and Facebook accounts to be suspended today pic.twitter.com/cjHT24BMWe
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) August 19, 2022
Tate told the Twitch streamer he didn’t know why he was banned from the meta platforms. But he went on to say that he has “good people to deal with” and that he is confident in “due process”.
Tate’s first rise to the limelight came when he appeared as a contestant on the UK version of Big Brother in 2016.
He was kicked from the show after a video surfaced of him allegedly assaulting a woman. Tate’s stance on the video is that it has been edited and is “a total lie trying to make me look bad,” as reported by the BBC.
In 2017, at the height of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, Tate was suspended from Twitter for saying women should “take responsibility” when they were sexually assaulted.
Tate’s popularity grew amid outlandish comments about women’s intelligence, saying they were “inherently lazy,” and is a strong advocate that men should have “authority” over a woman when in a relationship.
Tate has a YouTube channel called TateSpeech.TateSpeech/YouTube
CBS News reported that an account linked to Tate has been permanently banned from TikTok as the company ramps up efforts to remove videos of Tate’s hateful ideologies. His videos are uploaded from various accounts not directly affiliated with Tate, with #andrewtate having more than 13 billion views on TikTok.
“Our investigation of this content continues as we continue to remove accounts and videos that violate copyright laws and take steps to strengthen our enforcement, including our detection models, against this type of content,” a spokesperson told CBS News.