Lennon Wrecks A Big Potential Payday

By NICK LOWLES

On the morning of 5 February 2018 Stephen Lennon flew to Romania on EasyJet in the company of his uncle Kev Carroll, his film team Caolan Roberston and George Llewelyn, and the Canadian far-right social media influencer Lauren Southern to promote Front Media Network, a media company they were keen to establish. Having worked for the Canadian Rebel Media outlet for a year, and having thereby made money for its owner Ezra Levant, the quartet now wanted to keep all future proceeds for themselves.

Hosting them in Romania was Andrew Tate, a former world kickbox champion and old friend of Lennon’s from Luton. They were joined online by Casey Neistat, a hugely popular YouTube star who had made a fortune with Bitcoin.  He was the lead investor they were hoping to impress. Lennon was in a jubilant mood. He had just received an email from Levant ending his contract and he celebrated in the only way he knew, by snorting a few lines of cocaine. Not only did he indulge before he boarded the flight, but he also smuggled some on board and continued in the aircraft’s toilet. Southern was totally shocked. Having been brought up in a conservative Christian community in rural Canada, she had never experienced drugs at close quarters.

The group was met at Bucharest airport by Tate and his brother Tristan, and then ferried in expensive sports cars to a five-star hotel in the city centre. After dropping off their bags, they continued to the Tates’ large gated mansion. Lennon and the others were awestruck by their surroundings.   Beyond the large outdoor swimming pool, they noted that the walls of the mansion were adorned with samurai swords and other fighting regalia.  They were ushered into a room that housed a huge screen on which were displayed Bitcoin transactions and various real-time share prices.

Sitting around the massive table in front of the screen were four men. Casey Neistat dialled in via a video conference call from New York.

Caolan Robertson began the pitch by explaining their plans for Front Media Network; he described what they had done with Rebel and outlined their projected aims and potential income from their new project. “We predict in the next six months it could get like 1.4 billion views, especially if we get the US market,” he boasted.

Southern then added a bit more detail about their plans, mentioning the vacuum in the market that they hoped to fill with their direct, uncompromising and confrontational approach to telling the stories that others ignored. All they needed, they said, was $1 million in seed funding.

It was at that point that the presentation went off the rails. Lennon, still coming down from his drug session, was barely functioning. He looked dishevelled and unwell. “Look, I need this money. We need to make this happen,” he blurted out, before launching into a full-scale lamentation about his financial problems and how unfair it was that he was denied credit because he had served  time in gaol for mortgage fraud. “I just need… we just need the money,” he wailed.

Southern and Robertson looked on, mute in horror and disbelief. In a few seconds Lennon had just torpedoed their $1 million pitch.

The presentation ended as quickly as it had begun and, despite their best efforts to restart it, Casey Neistat, unsurprisingly, had made his decision and had already logged off. Without his interest, the Tate brothers were unwilling to part with any of their own money.

While Lennon’s drug habit had shattered their investment hopes, the trip had far more serious consequences for Southern. In a bid to resurrect the deal, she accepted an invitation from the Tate brothers to meet up later that evening to reassess her proposal – , alone this time, and with Lennon written out of the process.

Southern was not seen again by the others until the next morning, when she quietly recounted what had happened on the previous evening: she had been attacked and raped by Tate. After initially refusing to speak publicly about the incident, Southern has since reported the assault to the police and it now forms one of the cases being pursued by the authorities.

However, her ordeal was not yet over. On returning to London Southern sought a medical examination at a London hospital and then, along with Robertson and Llewelyn, she accepted Lennon’s offer to be put up in a hotel near to his mid-Bedfordshire home before their return flight to Canada. There, while she was still traumatised from the assault in Romania, Lennon invited her for a night out.  During the evening he plied her with drink and drugs, a first experience for her, and then, back in her hotel room, he begged her to have sex with him.

Years later, when Andrew Tate’s violent behaviour towards women first emerged, Lennon leapt to his friend’s defence, dismissing the allegations that were being levelled against him. His statement illustrates his scant respect for women: “If you have females around you who are prepared to take their clothes off for money, your links aren’t that strong. Because if they will take their clothes off for money, what do you think they will say about you for money. And there’s a hell of a lot of money, when there’s billions and trillions being spent to condition the world the way they want it, and then along comes Top G [Andrew Tate] starts messing it up for them. I’m worried for him.”

He went so far as to dismiss Southern’s claims of having been assaulted and insisted, on numerous occasions, that Southern was in a consensual relationship with Tate.  He also came up with the ludicrous claim that HOPE not hate had encouraged her to invent the allegations, in return for overturning the bans that prevented her from entering Australia and the UK.  Quite how he thought that would work out is a mystery, but facts and truth are irrelevant to Mr Lennon when it comes to lashing out.  Southern’s case has yet to go to court.