Breaking Down Andrew Tate’s Batshit Greta Thunberg Response Video
One of the greatest holiday gifts we, as a collective people, got this year was a perfect, no-notes slam dunk on men’s rights podcaster Andrew Tate by teenage climate activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg. After Tate tweeted a list of his car collection at her, bragging about his emissions, Thunberg shot back, encouraging Tate to “enlighten her” by sending the list to the email smalldickenergy@getalife.com. Thunberg’s breezy response clearly caught the internet personality off guard, since the only thing Tate could reply in the moment was: “How dare you?”
For those who aren’t aware, Tate is a former kickboxer who used a failed reality television stint to switch to a career in content creation. The now infamous media personality was booted from the 2016 U.K. version of Big Brother after a video of him beating a woman with a belt was leaked. While both Tate and the woman in the video said the actions were consensual, Tate has also faced numerous accusations of abuse from other women — and he’s since relocated to Romania.
“I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want,” he said. “I like being free.”
In April 2022, Tate and his brother Tristan’s home was raided by Romanian police as part of a human trafficking investigation but no one has been charged and both Tates have denied the allegations.
But Tate is perhaps most famous for his frequent podcast and Twitch appearances, where he grew in popularity for doubling down on wildly misogynistic takes, like his belief that women who are raped share some of the blame and that women decrease in value the more they have sex. Before he was banned from most popular social media sites, Tate had amassed at least 4 million Instagram followers and close to 1 million subscribers on YouTube.
It took Tate 10 hours to come up with a better comeback to Thunberg’s diss, and apparently the best he could do was a one-minute response video practically dripping in condescension. But beyond the Versace bathrobe and poor audio quality, Tate also manages to misrepresent climate change, Thunberg’s joke, and his entire political ethos. Here are just a few fact-checks.