This is crazy!
Seriously, you have to read this, it is insane.
Seconded. This is a plot that would be rejected from Days Of Our Lives for being too unrealistic. Absolutely mind-blowing what transpired.
Speaking as a Notre Dame fan…
That is so weird that, for once, I can’t think of a damn thing to say.
And now a Notre Dame statement saying Te’o was duped, which makes no sense.
This is why I’m not in favor of long-distance relationships. How do you know that girl you’re talking to on the phone even exists? 
Seriously, he is saying he was duped?
Stay tuned…
I just finished the article and was about to start a pit thread but decided to wait and see what the fallout was, and to check the game room.
This is some bizarre shit.
Its like “my girlfriend in Canada” taken to the nth degree.
Why is a famous Mormon athlete pretending to have a girlfriend? Why would you participate in a two-man operation to keep this fraud going?
The timeline shows that they supposedly met several times IRL, and also that she posted pics on twitter (that turned out to be obtained from a stranger). So unless he met a dead ringer for the stranger who was also in on it, I can’t see how he could have been duped.
Could this be a beard that went horribly wrong?
It’s the Breakfast Club as directed by Tim Burton:
"She lives in Canada, met her at Niagara Falls. You wouldn’t know her.
And is, you know, dead."
Reading down that Deadspin article… it’s almost got to be a fake beard created by Manti and Ronaiah, to cover up their relationship. They had to “kill her off” when it became too hard to maintain the story, but with his fame, it was just a matter of time before someone figured it out. And it’s a shame that - assuming this is correct - we still have a society where people feel they have to resort to such things.
No, it doesn’t. So I guess he lied to the school about it, too.
If this is a coverup of his sexuality, it’s that much more ironic: he’d been a very successful and clean-cut guy, and the first ‘out’ pro athlete is probably in for a huge marketing bonanza that would dwarf the one that was coming to Te’o based on the image he’d made up, so he was giving away money even before he was caught in this scam.
Well he is Mormon, so that probably played a role in his wanting to hide it, if it is the case.
Te’o says he’s the victim of a hoax and the relationship was only online. I wish we knew who made all the claims about his relationship with Kekua, because that would make it much easier to figure out if he was in on all of this. The South Bend Tribune piece, for example, has no sourcing at all (what a piece of crap). Who told them when they met, what it was like? I doubt it was Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Was it Te’o? Someone in Te’o’s family? This story says the fake brother and sister would talk to Te’o and read him letters from Lennay.
It wouldn’t be the first time a Mormon made up a fantastic fairy tale and got others to believe it.
Wow, I thought Lance would be nearly untouchable as lying-shit athlete of the year, and not a week later we have a serious challenge.
Maybe he got got Catfished?
I feel bad for the fake family of the fake girlfriend having to go through this all over again.
Why would they need to kill her off to end the ruse? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to just say they broke up due to distance? A death is far too easy to verify.
Nah, he’d be in for a marketing bonanza at some point but it would have to happen after he was already a pro and a success. If he comes out now the odds of him getting drafted are much worse. Teams would steer away just to avoid attention even if they don’t care about his sexuality. Do you think Belicheck would invite that media attention?
Also, as I write this I see Te’o’s press release on the topic. Basically he says he’s a victim of a hoax. A) This statement is a master class on how to handle a press release and B) totally believable to me considering some of the recent internet identity hoaxes that have happened.
I dunno - under that theory, maybe they figured that someone would eventually want to interview the ex with a “what was he like” retrospective, and they didn’t realize how easy it’d be to prove that a random girl wasn’t dead or actually real. I thought the accounts of their relationship said they physically got together, so unless that was the press assuming things/Manti spinning his Internet Girlfriend as being Real (rather than not wanting to admit he hadn’t actually met her but actually totally believing in her reality), something weird is definitely up.
Oo, did Ronaiah have a crush and want to cyber with Manti, and ended up “Catfishing” him, killing “her” off when it was too hard to maintain the story?
Marley - Gay/lesbian people don’t get a whole lot of slack in that religion. Not only is homosexual activity considered a sin, but you also don’t get a shot at the “best” afterlife unless you’re heterosexually married (and Mormon).