A mother in north Wales has expressed concern that her 15-year-old son has been 'radicalised' by controversial online influencer Andrew Tate. The woman, identified only as Jane, said her son Will was involved in an incident at school where he and other boys repeated Tate's views to make a female teacher 'squirm'.
Jane said Will continued to push the teacher even when she told him Tate's views could be described as extreme. 'He sees a man that is strong and powerful and has made lots of money,' she said of her only son. She added that Will believes 'everything Mr Tate says is taken out of context and used to make him look bad'.
Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer, rose to fame in 2016 after being removed from TV show Big Brother over a video that appeared to show him attacking a woman. He has since been banned from multiple social media platforms for misogynistic content, though he was recently allowed back on Twitter after Elon Musk's takeover.
Teachers in Wales have reported a rise in boys quoting Tate. One secondary school teacher said: 'These kids turn onto the wrong corner of the internet and suddenly they're in a very, very radical place. They read it as gospel.' Another teacher noted that boys are drawn to Tate's 'image' as a 'self-made millionaire'.
Jane said she listens to her son's views in an attempt to disarm extreme opinions calmly. 'I don't want to make it something he can't talk about, because then you have no clue,' she said. She hopes that in the long term, this will just be a 'blip'.
