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YouTuber Lauren Southern has accused controversial influencer Andrew Tate of sexually assaulting her and choking her unconscious.
Southern, now 30, alleges in an upcoming memoir that Tate — who has been accused of numerous sex crimes — attacked her when she flew to discuss a business proposal with him in the Romanian capital Bucharest in 2018, when she was 22.
Tate’s attorney said Wednesday that the influencer “unequivocally repudiates the pathetic filth peddled” by his latest accuser.
Southern said she had a dinner with Tate that was “flirtatious” and “charming” — but then changed and seemed “off,” in excerpts of her memoir, “This Is Not Real Life,” shared Tuesday on her Substack.
Andrew and his brother, Tristan, later invited the Canadian YouTuber back to their compound, but instead took her to a nightclub — where she ended up vomiting after just one cocktail and a shot, she wrote.
She alleges that Andrew Tate then picked her up, put her in a car, took her back to her hotel room and forced himself on her.
“He kissed me. I wasn’t expecting it, and I wasn’t looking for it, but I kissed him back briefly and then told him I wanted to sleep,” she wrote.
“I was extraordinarily tired. He wanted to go further. I said no, very clearly, multiple times, and tried to pull his hands off me.”
As she tried to fight back, Tate “put his arm around my neck and began strangling me unconscious,” Southern wrote, alleging that he kept strangling her every time she “regained enough consciousness” to push him off.
“I’d prefer not to share the rest. It’s pretty obvious,” she wrote.
Southern described how reading news articles about other alleged assaults by Tate that matched her experiences led to her leaving far-right politics.
Her decision to publish the chapters detailing the alleged incident for free was because she didn’t want to “profit off this incident,” she wrote.
Tate’s representatives did not respond immediately to requests for comment Wednesday, but his attorney, Joseph D. McBride, released a furious denial on X early Wednesday.
“Andrew Tate unequivocally repudiates the pathetic filth peddled by Lauren Southern in her pitiable tome,” he said, calling it “nothing but an evil marketing ploy.”
Tate will “pursue Southern relentlessly for defamation,” the attorney said — suggesting it was part of a broader attack against all men.
“They targeted Trump, then Tate; mark my words, you are in the crosshairs next,” McBride wrote.
In a separate video Tate shared on X, controversial far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson claimed he was at the hotel the morning after Southern alleges she was attacked.
“I was in the hotel room next door, when I walked out of the room the next morning when we were leaving, Lauren Southern’s at the door kissing [Tate],” he said — calling it proof Southern’s allegations are “insanity” and “bullshit.”
Tate, the notorious “manosphere” influencer, faces many criminal charges in the UK and Romania, including rape and human trafficking.
He is also accused of threatening a woman with a gun and violently sexually assaulting another ex-girlfriend, charges which he has denied.
Southern announced her retirement from political activism in 2019, but in 2020 she declared her return in a YouTube video in which she expressed some remorse for her previous hardline stances.
English (US)