Abbie Chatfield has opened up about receiving hateful DMs from “teen boys” inspired by controversial online figure Andrew Tate.

The Masked Singer judge was a co-host on The Project last night when talk turned to Tate, who’s been labelled “the scariest man on the internet.”

If you’re not familiar with the man, that label isn’t necessarily hyperbolic. The entrepreneur and former kickboxing champion has suddenly become one of the most viral influencers on the internet, acquiring a loyal following for his misogynistic views. “Women can’t drive” and “men can cheat but women can’t” should give you an idea of the level of intellect Tate offers.

Yet Tate’s videos and messages have become near-inescapable on TikTok, particularly for young men, and Chatfield expressed her anxiety about this. “I kind of exist in the realm of feminism and calling out misogyny, and on my podcast, my radio show, I’ve been asked (about him),” she said to her fellow co-hosts.

“I do feel like I really want to ignore him. I want to suffocate him of any oxygen in media, because the more I engage with his content – even to research, for a radio segment – if I look at his TikToks, or he’s tagged in a TikTok and I look at it for too long, that feeds the algorithm and it feeds out more to my followers and to the followers who are already engaging in that content.”

She continued: “It is getting a bit too big to ignore now. But I do still fear that if I speak about it to my followers or my listeners, it doesn’t really achieve anything. I’m sure those who are my listeners already feel this way, they agree that yes he’s disgusting, he’s awful. I’m not sure me speaking about it in a closed circuit will help anything. All it will do is have those who agree with me engage with his content more.”

Chatfield then revealed how Tate’s influence had even spread to her DMs. “I’m getting DMs from what appear to be early teen boys saying, ‘I hope Andrew Tate destroys you,’ or things along that line,” she said. “I also get comments calling me ‘Abbie Tate’, and comments on TikTok especially. That’s where it’s really, really rife.”

As Chatfield angrily pointed out, Tate’s growing viral success highlighted a double standard existing on TikTok. “I upload a TikTok in a white singlet, with a bra on, and it gets deleted in a minute, wouldn’t even go up,” she said. “But there’s endless videos of him saying that women are property, and extremely vile, misogynistic things. How can that slip through the cracks but me in a singlet can’t?”

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