The BBC has been criticised for promoting a TikTok prankster who went viral entering stranger’s homes, snatching elderly women’s dogs and asking strangers if they “wanted to die” onto Newsnight to discuss Andrew Tate.
Mizzy, 18, real name Bacari-Bronze O’Garro, appeared on the heavyweight political discussion show fitted with a prison tag after his release on bail over alleged breaches of criminal behaviour.
In a bizarre performance he posed, snatched host Kirsty Wark’s glass of water, thanked the BBC for making him an “established prankster” and revealed the Tate brothers had been in touch to help guide his social media career.
On Thursday night’s show, co-panelist author Laura Bates asked who is profiting from the clicks of young people as they debated self-described misogynist Andrew Tate’s toxic influence on young boys.
She said: “Algorithms are designed to drive people to increasingly extreme content because it gets them clicks. So you have to look at who is profiting here. Andrew Tate is profiting certainly...”
Mizzy cut her off to say “Mizzy is profiting” flashing gun signs and laughing before jubilantly throwing his arms in the air on the BBC show.
He continues: “You guys give [Tate] a platform.
“You give me the platform everything I do is bad apparently what you are saying but I’m on BBC News right now blud, come on now, you man playing the game.”
He then snatches Wark’s glass of water saying “this is my water now”.
Mizzy revealed that Tristan Tate, currently under arrest in Romania on suspicion of organised crime and human trafficking with his brother Andrew, had slid into his DMs to tell him he has “potential” to become a social media sensation but should change his ways.
He went on to criticise the media’s amplification of Tate’s trafficking charges saying there are bigger things to worry about “like world hunger and strikes”.
“I’m just an 18-year-old boy, I have a child I’m from the hood I’m just living my life at the end of the day.”
Asked if he would criticise Tate, Mizzy said last night: “That’s you man’s job. That doesn’t matter to me.
“[We admire] his confidence and his stride and the way he talks and carries himself.”
His appearance caused a storm on social media.
Conservative member Chris Rose said: “Why is Mizzy on Newsnight? We should not reward or incentivise his illegal, anti-social behaviour. Idiotic decision by the BBC.”
Economist Andrew Lilico tweeted: “So Mizzy is now a ‘social media influencer’ who gets invited to share his wisdom on Newsnight, not a criminal thug who filmed himself threatening strangers with death & entering their homes uninvited?”
It came after Tate was given a BBC interview from house arrest to claim he is a “force for good in the world” and a “positive influence”.
He said: “We have an open criminal investigation, I am absolutely and utterly sure I’ll be found innocent.
“I know the case better than you, I know it intimately and you don’t, I have seen all the criminal files and the evidence against me and you haven’t, I know the truth of what happened and you don’t.
The former kickboxer added: “I preach hard work, discipline, I’m an athlete, I preach anti-drug, I preach religion, I preach no alcohol, I preach no knife crime, every single problem with modern society I’m against.
“I’m teaching young men to be disciplined, to be diligent, to listen, to train, to work hard, to be exactly like me.”
Former kickboxer Andrew Tate, who has lived in Romania since 2017, was previously banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech.
