Young women 'misunderstood the reality' of Andrew Tate and thought 'they'd be his next wife,' bodyguard says

• Young women "misunderstood the reality" of life with Andrew Tate, his head of security said.
• Bogdan Stancu, Tate's bodyguard, told the BBC "some girls" living on Tate's property "thought they'd be his next wife."

Young women "misunderstood the reality" of life with Andrew Tate and thought they'd be his "next wife," bodyguard Bogdan Stancu told the BBC this week.

The American-British internet personality was arrested in December, alongside his brother Tristan, on suspicion of human trafficking and forming an organized crime group that manipulated women into making porn for their online business.

Tate's lawyer has said he and Tristan are innocent.

Speaking to the BBC, Stancu said many of the women living with Tate were under the age of 25.

He described Tate, 36, as "a little bit paranoid" and convinced that "somebody wanted to hurt him," though Tate was seemingly unsure who that somebody was.

Stancu said he never saw anything untoward at Tate's property in Romania but noted that "some girls thought they'd be his next wife."

Tate previously talked about manipulating women

Stefan Loredan, a legal expert in Dubai who has been following Tate's case, said the controversial celebrity's biggest legal challenge will be his own statements on rape and exploitation.

The Tate brothers have "been incriminating themselves through the social-media content that they've been creating in the last two to three years," Loredan recently told Insider.

Tate, for example, said in a since-deleted YouTube video that he moved to Romania from the UK because: "I'm not a fucking rapist but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free."

In another video, he said women are "not allowed out" when they stay at his house.

In a statement from his website that no longer exists, Tate detailed his manipulation of women, saying: "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."

'I loved raping you,' one WhatsApp message from Tate said

Vice News reported this month that Tate sent a sexual assault accuser numerous messages about rape.

"I love raping you," Tate reportedly wrote in one WhatsApp message Vice shared in its story.

The WhatsApp texts formed part of the evidence that UK police collected when investigating Tate between 2015 and 2019. The Crown Protection Service, however, did not pursue rape charges against Tate in 2019.

Investigators in Tate's current case identified six women as potential victims of trafficking, BBC said in a separate story.

Two women — named only as Beatrice and Jasmin — came forward to say they are "not a victim" of Tate's.

They said the Tate brothers were not "aggressive or rude," and said they did not feel threatened.

Not much is known about the level of evidence Romanian investigators have gathered, the BBC said.

Authorities seized Tate's luxury properties and rare car collection earlier this month. If he is convicted, these assets could be used to compensate victims in the case, a spokesperson for Romanian authorities previously told Insider.