Inside the War Room of Andrew Tate

Andrew Tate is currently detained in Romania on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group to exploit women. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Prior to the arrest, Matt spent time with Andrew Tate, attending an event for his so-called “War Room” group.

“It was slightly scary,” he tells BBC Three, “you’re in the middle of the mountains of Transylvania with 100 hardcore Andrew Tate supporters making fun of you and calling you queer constantly. Plus, you’ve just done an interview [with Andrew Tate] that makes them all really angry and think that you’re a snake.”

As part of filming his documentary The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate, Matt was given unprecedented access to what Andrew Tate calls his “global network” which “frees the modern man from socially induced incarceration.”

This “global network” is the War Room, that saw members pay £4,500 to be put through a mysterious “Test” in a Romanian boxing gym. For Matt, this meant sparring with Andrew Tate himself, and then fighting a real MMA fighter that Andrew had invited to the War Room.

Matt had two aims in making his film – to discover what it was that made this man such an attractive role model to young men across the world, and to tell the stories of the women accusing him of sexual violence. Andrew Tate denies their allegations.

What is Andrew Tate’s War Room?

On its website, The War Room is described as “the only place of its kind where powerful men from all walks of life join together in a brotherhood committed to becoming better men.”

“It’s a so-called secret society that spans across the globe,” says Matt. “The event that we went on cost around $5,000 (£4,000) to join.

“One hundred Tate fans flew from all over the world to try to join. And when they got there, they were presented with something called ‘The Test’ – in three days, you'll be given the option to fight a professional MMA fighter in an actual cage-fighting octagon in the Romanian mountains.”

‘It was quite sad to see’

“I think a lot of men there had been hurt by women emotionally,” Matt says of the event’s attendees. “There was a lot of divorce[d men], a lot of men who had had their hearts broken.

“I think sometimes if that isn’t dealt with, that can make someone vulnerable to content that makes them hate women.

“A lot of them were also depressed and not satisfied with their bodies. A lot of them were beating themselves up quite a lot. It was quite sad to see.”

Many of the men would only speak to Matt if their identities were hidden in the documentary. “A lot of them said they had jobs. A lot of them had wives that they didn't want to find out about it.”

For Matt, however, focusing on the men is to miss the point of The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate. “I don't want the take-home from this documentary to be ‘what a hard time young men have’.

“This is a documentary that exposes an organisation that's being accused of trafficking women and raping women, and also being accused of promoting violence. The real victims of this are women.”

‘Andrew Tate said, ‘put some gloves on, I didn't like the questions this morning’’

The 100 men invited to the War Room had to decide whether they would agree to fight the MMA fighter. Matt was one of the men who agreed, as he knew it would allow him to better understand the War Room mentality.

Prior to this, Matt had a sparring match with Andrew Tate in which Matt was punched in the face. Andrew Tate has said they were there to film him sparring, but then he dropped a surprise.

“When I got there, he said, ‘put some gloves on, I didn't like the questions this morning.’ That was scary. I’d never boxed before.”

Though this sparring match was a surprise, Matt thinks Andrew Tate “wanted me to genuinely have an experience that transformed me into understanding his philosophy on life”.

If that was Andrew Tate’s intention, it did not work for Matt. Instead, he says he “just came away with a very firm understanding that I would never agree to fighting a professional ever again".

Other participants, however, did seem to get something out of their MMA octagon experience. In the documentary, we see one man say: “Didn’t it feel like a movie, the last few days?...We shouldn’t be working nine to five, we should be making our lives into a movie.”

For Matt, this is central to the appeal Andrew Tate has on young men: “A lot of people there were depressed, but also bored with life. Andrew Tate really plays into that and says, ‘no, it isn't enough, you should try and be an action hero.’ And so he crafted this male action fantasy for them.”

‘I get a lot of death threats’

After returning from the Romanian mountains, Matt was able to talk to a woman who accused Andrew Tate of raping her, and another who alleges he beat her. Andrew Tate denies the allegations.

Though Andrew Tate is currently detained in Romania, his fans are still very active on social media – and some of them have been attacking Matt and The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate documentary. “I get a lot of death threats.

“If it appears that there is an extremely vocal minority of Andrew Tate fans going after me, that's because there are forums and groups in which they are all talking to each other. I've seen screenshots of people offering incentives to people to share videos that cancel people who have come out against Andrew Tate.

“I think a lot of them are quite young boys, I feel sorry for them. You have to think, what is going on in this person's life that they're sending this death threat from their GCSE classroom?”

The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate is streaming now on BBC iPlayer. The documentary will air on BBC Three on Tuesday 21 February at 10 pm.