Candace Owens Defends Andrew Tate as Fresh Allegations Emerge

Candace Owens has spoken out in defense of Andrew Tate, saying that she doesn't believe allegations he is a rapist—as new reports emerged alleging that he once sent a text message to a woman that read, "I love raping you."

The American-British influencer was arrested in Romania on December 29, 2022, along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian nationals, and charged with human trafficking. Initially held for 24 hours, Tate's detainment was later extended to 30 days.

Romanian prosecutors allege that Tate and his brother coerced six women into producing pornography, with the alleged victims facing "acts of physical violence and mental coercion." It was also widely reported that Tate was accused of rape.

Speaking on the Candace Owens Podcast in a video that was released on YouTube on Wednesday, Owens said that while she doesn't condone Tate's "lifestyle," she rejects allegations that he is a rapist.

Citing her "very realistic opinion of what women are capable of," the conservative commentator said: "I believe is women that trade sex for positions in Hollywood, for positions at work, and then when they regret that sex that they traded they call a man a rapist."

She then went on to recount how she met Tate in London at the time that she and her husband of three-and-a-half years, George Farmer, were dating. According to Owens, she met him through mutual friends, but knew nothing of him at the time.

Describing Tate as "very kind" to her at the time, Owens said that she spoke to him very little as her attention was focused on Farmer. But her assistant at the time, who was Romanian, spent some time conversing with Tate.

The assistant, she said, "comes over to me afterwards and she says, 'This guy Andrew Tate, I think he's a pimp in Romania.' ... She also said a lot of stupid things so I didn't really give too much air to what she said. It just didn't really make sense to me... I didn't look further into it because it wasn't relevant to me and it wasn't relevant to my life.

"So you fast forward to today and I see these allegations of him being a rapist, human sex trafficking, whatever, in Romania. My take on this is that I do not believe that Andrew Tate is a rapist. I don't. I think that that is what people like to accuse men of when they're trying to take them down, right?

"I believe that Andrew Tate is exactly what he tells us that he is in his videos when he talks about women and he says that he thinks that women should be subservient to men."

On the same day that Owens' take on the matter was posted, VICE World News published details of text and voice messages allegedly exchanged between Tate and an unnamed woman who accused the former professional kickboxer of rape in the U.K. back in 2013. Police in the U.K. never charged him with a crime.

Amid the dozens of messages reviewed by the outlet, one attributed to Tate reads: "Am I a bad person? Because the more you didn't like it, the more I enjoyed it. I f****** loved how much you hated it. It turned me on. Why am I like that? Why?"

In another message, Tate is alleged to have written: "I love raping you."

The article included graphic details of Tate allegedly raping the woman. He was also accused of similar actions by two other women.

While she was not referring specifically to the VICE World News report, Owens said in her YouTube video that the publishing of Tate's text messages with women did not serve as proof that he was guilty of rape.

Stating that Tate is being targeted in such reports because he "describes himself as an anti-feminist," she said of previously published text messages: "I guess that's supposed to be the media's form of evidentiary support to the idea that he's a rapist.

"What ran in an article last night was a transcript of a woman basically saying that she didn't want to get a tattoo—allegedly all the girls that Andrew Tate is with they have a tattoo of his name on their body—and she says, 'No, I want to like keep my body pure.' And he's like—I'm paraphrasing here—'If you're going to be with me, your body belongs to me and you need to get this tattoo.'

"I do not find that to be evidence that he is a rapist and we need to stop being so sloppy when we say that people are rapists and we need to accept the fact that there are a lot of women that have this fetish, there are women that like to be dominated over."

Calling Romania "an incredibly corrupt country," Owens said that "if you are flashing your wealth on the internet in the capacity that Andrew Tate flashes wealth on the internet, the government will make up charges to seize your wealth and that is exactly what is happening to Andrew Tate right now."

While she defended Tate from rape allegations, Owens said that she does "not agree with Andrew Tate's lifestyle whatsoever. Not as a Christian person do I agree with Andrew Tate's lifestyle.

"But you can two things can be true at once. You can disagree with Andrew Tate's lifestyle while also acknowledging that the women that involved themselves with him... also contributed themselves to this. They did this intentionally. They knew what they were getting into. Perhaps it was for money, perhaps it was for fame. It likely was for a certain lifestyle he provided, but that is what you call an exchange."

After his detainment, Tate was taken to hospital on Sunday following a "routine medical check," according to Romanian news channel Antena 3 CNN.

On the same day, Tate updated his Twitter account, cryptically addressing the incident.

"The Matrix has attacked me. But they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea. Hard to Kill," he wrote on Sunday.

He also retweeted a number of people, including one user calling for his release. Other tweets from Tate on this day included referring to himself as a revolutionary. "It seems every generation's great revolutionaries suffer from unfair imprisonment," he wrote.

On Saturday he'd also referred to himself as the hero of this story. "Going to jail when guilty of a crime is the life story of a criminal," he said. "Going to jail when completely innocent is the story of a hero."

Over the years, Tate has been criticized for a number of controversial comments about women, including his 2017 claim that they "must bear some responsibility" if they get raped, during the #MeToo scandal.

According to The Guardian newspaper, in one video Tate discusses how he would react to a woman accusing him of cheating, saying: "Bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b****."

Tate has repeatedly denied any involvement in people trafficking.

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Specialists from the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) sexual assault hotline are available 24/7 via phone (1 (800) 656-4673) and online chat. Additional support from the group is also accessible via the mobile app.