Former right-wing commentator Lauren Southern says she’s not a white nationalist. Self-described misogynist Andrew Tate says he’s not a rapist. Despite this, white nationalists sure were fans of Southern’s work, and people with questionable views about coercive sex feel the same way about Tate’s.
In her memoir, Southern shows the sort of self-awareness that modern conservatives only exhibit when something bad happens to them personally.
This past week, Southern accused Tate of raping her. Tate denies this. The accusations came via excerpts from Southern’s forthcoming self-published memoir, which she released for free on her Substack, she says, to avoid accusations that she is trying to profit off the story.
Southern says that she and some business associates met the Tate brothers in Romania in 2018, under the impression that the Tates were potential investors in a media venture. Southern later joined the Tates at a nightclub, she writes, where she says she felt extremely drowsy after accepting drinks from the group. Southern says Tate carried her back to a hotel room, and then, she writes:
“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. I was extraordinarily tired. He wanted to go further. I said no, very clearly, multiple times, and tried to pull his hands off me. He put his arm around my neck and began strangling me unconscious. I tried to fight back. He repeatedly strangled me every time I regained enough consciousness to pull at his arms. I’d prefer not to share the rest. It’s pretty obvious.”
Although The New York Times made attempts to corroborate some of the details — it interviewed friends and associates whom she’d told what had happened shortly thereafter, and she provided the paper with a form indicating that she sought some follow-up medical care and considered pursuing charges — the truth of what actually happened between Tate and Southern will likely never be known for sure.
A lawyer for Tate told the Times Southern’s account is “textbook extortion. She is lying through her teeth,” and also posted a statement on X denying Southern’s account.
Tate is currently under a number of investigations in different countries, including for allegations of human trafficking, rape and assault in the U.K., and human trafficking and money laundering in Romania. He was kicked off the U.K. edition of “Big Brother” in 2016 by production companies after it came to light that he was the subject of an investigation of rape and sexual assault by U.K. authorities at the time (he has denied the allegations). He has publicly advocated for sexual coercion and calls himself an avowed misogynist. The BBC reported that he once texted a woman who had accused him of raping and strangling her, “I love raping u.” He denies all wrongdoing. He declined to comment when asked about the text.
In addition to Southern’s racist and xenophobic oeuvre — her most well-known work includes perpetuating the myth of South African “white genocide” and writing “F— Islam” on her face with lipstick during a “makeup tutorial video” — Southern has long made hay mocking the idea of rape culture. One of her early viral videos from around 2015 featured her telegenically declaring that she was not a feminist, because feminism ignored how often men are raped (she leaves out the fact that men are still the ones doing just about all of the rape). She’s claimed that the real victims of rape culture are men who are falsely accused. She pulled up to an anti-rape demonstration for survivors in Vancouver in 2015 with a sign that read “There is no rape culture in the West,” and encouraged marchers who wanted to encounter “real rape culture” to check out Africa.
In her memoir, Southern shows the sort of self-awareness that modern conservatives only exhibit when something bad happens to them personally. She reflects on how the encounter with Tate messed with her head, how she tried to remain on good terms with him even after he’d allegedly brutalized her. She still doesn’t hate him, she claims, writing: “I have forgiven him, truly. But that doesn’t mean he should be free to keep hurting, tormenting, and scamming others.”
An Atlantic profile from 2020 portrayed Southern as a canny young woman who would good-naturedly laugh at sexist jokes, and would gamely wave off Gavin McInnes’ repeated attempts to drunkenly proposition her. McInnes was married at the time. In a rebuke to the Atlantic piece published on website, Southern said that her profiler had repeatedly tried to get her to accuse McInnes of more extensive sexual misconduct, to contribute to a #MeToo hit piece on the Proud Boys founder.
In the years since she formally stepped back from political commentary, Southern has been candid about some moments of growth.
In that same response, Southern depicts her own actions as valiant: Despite bullying and pressure from mainstream news media, her virtue — let men do whatever and just, like, be cool with it — remained intact.
In the years since she formally stepped back from political commentary, Southern has been candid about some moments of growth, especially after her husband left her with a small child after less than two years of “tradlife” marriage.
But despite all of the ways that far-right men have belittled her, objectified her or used her youth, beauty and femininity as cover for their misogyny, Southern continues to cape for them in her writing. She Doesn’t Hate Andrew Tate. She’s Not Hurt by Gavin McInnes. Hell, she still had a few nice things to say of Atlantic writer Daniel Lombroso, even though she says he wanted her to “manufacture sexual trauma for clicks.”
Since Southern’s accusation against Tate, it seems that not a single one of the men she has worked with, or for, has publicly defended her. Back in 2024, when screenshots of text messages alluding to the Tate-Southern encounter began circulating, one outlet referred to Southern as a “tradthot,” downplaying her allegations because of her alleged sexual promiscuity. Other far-right media figures like Tucker Carlson and Paul Joseph Watson have defended Tate in the past, although they haven’t weighed in on this yet. As of press time, we haven’t heard a peep from McInnes.
Writing in her memoir, Southern seems to have this realization glance off her. “Conservatives, even just a hundred years ago, would have strung up people in the streets for less than what the Tate brothers do on any given weekend. Men then understood that part of building a strong society is protecting people, especially young women, from predators and pimps.”
But the truth is darker, and sadder. The discarding of Southern demonstrates that the modern conservative ideal of masculinity was never about protection, although the lie of promised protection is a seductive recruitment tool for those who believe themselves worthy of being protected — pretty white women who are terrified of brown people, for example.
But signing up to go to battle for these men does not pay dividends to women outside of contexts where it benefits dominant men. Embodying the physical and ideological ideal of the manosphere will not protect women when their humanity becomes an inconvenience to the men they provide cover for. If Lauren Southern doesn’t realize this by now, maybe she never will.
