# Manti Te'o's Fake, Dead Girlfriend **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 16, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424 "2013-01-16T22:06:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/181 "2013-01-18T16:25:48Z")
Apologies if this has already been covered, but how does Manti explain not rushing to be near the love of his life when she’s (1) in a car crash, (2) in the hospital with cancer, and (3) being buried? ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/182 "2013-01-18T16:30:51Z")
Has anyone bothered to check on Te’o’s grandmother? For all we know , she might be sitting in a condo in Florida wondering why no one calls anymore! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/183 "2013-01-18T16:40:08Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Manti’s great uncle gave a[radio interview](http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/18/teos-uncle-takes-aim-at-ronaiah-tuiasosopo/)yesterday. He claims to have met Tuiasosopo and that the end game was a financial scam. He apparently had contact with Tuiasosopo. > > At least that makes more sense than catfishing just for kicks. It’s true that a financial scam would make more sense than just doing it for kicks. But if that was the case, why wouldn’t Te’O announce that? He’d be getting more sympathy if he was the victim of a financial scam. People would wonder about his intelligence, but not about his honesty. I did read speculation about it being a financial scam, and it not being admitted because the scammer got money not only from Te’O, but also from Notre Dame, and so Notre Dame is still trying to keep that quiet. While that would make the story even better for the soap opera drama, it does seem unlikely to me. > [@Simplicio](#): > > Certainly people are speculating what might’ve happened. I don’t think speculating about something is the same as “making a big deal out of it”. People speculate about lots of trivial stuff. Also it’s possible this story is bigger than it would otherwise be because we only know parts of it and can only speculate to fill in the blanks. If we knew all of the details, people would have already moved on. But mysteries grab the attention of people, even silly, inconsequential ones like this. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/184 "2013-01-18T16:44:58Z")
I’m not sure why Manti hasn’t come out and said exactly what happened. He apparently planned to break the news on Monday. By now he has an agent (Tom Condon) who is almost certainly guiding him. At least Notre Dame realized someone needed to say something ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/185 "2013-01-18T16:45:11Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I agree. > > Not sure how anything you wrote supports this though. As you yourself said, its not going to even end up making that much of a difference _even to the people involved_. Manti will probably suffer being the butt of late night comedy jokes for a few weeks, and then go on to the NFL same as he would’ve in any case. Tuiasosopo will disappear into the wood-work as quickly as he can. Lennay will presumably continue not-existing. > > As I said before, the irrelevance of it is part of why its fun. Its nice having a news-story every once-and-a-while that’s inconcequential. No one dies (and one person un-dies!), the number of people it affects is small, and even amongst that small group of people, most of them will probably land on their feet. This is exactly how I feel, it is a wonderfully weird story. There is no outrage, really, at least on this board. Will it affect his draft status, eh? Probably not much, I mean there are 32 opinions on every player in the draft, one for each team, there may be a few that knock him down a bit for it (unless somehow he is proven to be way more complicit than it currently seems), but I am sure most won’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/186 "2013-01-18T16:52:45Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > This is where I have a problem and it’s continually being bled into the hoax as you have done. > > (1) There was a hoax. An online fake girl, and real people pretending to be her and her family. > > (2) There was Manti publicly talking about his relationship with a girl _after_ she recently passed from cancer at a young age. > > Those two are being mushed together. They are completely separate. > > (1) Manti is almost certainly not apart of the hoax. It’s really disingenuous to report at this point without at least showing the mountain of evidence to the contrary. You only have one anonymous kid saying he’s “80% sure” Manti was in on it. That’s the only evidence. And that odd percent is based on that kid thinking Manti couldn’t be so gullible - not because he actually knew - it was just his opinion. That “evidence” would cause a thread to get kicked out of GQ and would be laughed off in GD. With that, whoever is apart of (1) has sinister motives and they are scumbags. > > (2) Embellishing a relationship. We don’t know why he did; we might not even know if he did. **There are many non-sinister reasons why someone might embellish this relationship**. It could be for self-promotion. Or…He was still in close contact with the family after her death - that’s important to remember. We don’t know what they were telling him (she told us she was the love of your life, ect ect ect). There is the perps from (1) and Manti Te’o. Without more, who’s side should we be on at this point. “Embellishment” is just a nice word for lying. Its silly to say that there’s “no evidence he was in on the hoax” and then note that he was in fact, lying in such a way to perpetuate the hoax. Whether he was himself being lied to is an open question, but given that his own story is certainly at least partially a lie, it’d be silly to discount the idea that he was in on the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/187 "2013-01-18T17:12:01Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > “Embellishment” is just a nice word for lying. Its silly to say that there’s “no evidence he was in on the hoax” and then note that he was in fact, lying in such a way to perpetuate the hoax. Whether he was himself being lied to is an open question, but given that his own story is certainly at least partially a lie, it’d be silly to discount the idea that he was in on the whole thing. First (and with this story I’m actually glad you did because it proves a point) you shouldn’t quote me incorrectly. I never said there’s “no evidence he was in on the hoax.” I said it was very limited and there’s much more evidence to suggest he was not. But anyways…No doubt at all embellishment = lying (although I think embellishment is based in truth, but added to with lies; whereas lying can be without any basis in truth). Let’s use a real example, instead of Te’o. My Dad died of cancer at a semi-young age. We lied and lied all night, and even to this day we do, about us as a family and all the stories of my Dad - it’s only good, it’s only positive, it’s only polished. We’re all a bunch of liars when it comes to talking of people we love. Is that sinister? They’re not lies to cover up a murder he committed. Surely you don’t think less of me for saying them. Surely that’s just manners and is almost expected of people. Now, if I learned today that he was not in fact my Dad (and I had no idea), does that somehow make those lies/stories greater and sinister. Or is that separate. My feelings were 100% genuine which is _why_ I was lying. (For the record, he was the greatest Dad ever! - no lie) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/188 "2013-01-18T18:19:36Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > First (and with this story I’m actually glad you did because it proves a point) you shouldn’t quote me incorrectly. I never said there’s “no evidence he was in on the hoax.” I said it was very limited and there’s much more evidence to suggest he was not. My understanding of Board policy is that block quotes are used for literally quoting what someone said, while quotation marks can be used to summarize. You said there was one piece of evidence that Manti was lying, but then said that piece wasn’t convincing (and put “evidence” in scare quotes) so I summarized your statement as saying there was “no evidence”. My point is that there’s pretty strong reason for thinking Manti was in on it. He certainly lied about having met his gf. The hoax was in a large part due to lies that originated with him. Its of course possible that he was in turn being lied to about the rest of it, but our main reason for thinking that’s so is his own claims, and we already know he’s been dishonest. And of course, there’s a pretty strong Occam’s razor argument that there isn’t two layers of hoaxers pulling off two sets of difficult to execute hoaxes. (plus, at least a few times he seems to have lied even once he knew “Lennay” was not dead. In those cases the hoaxing is unambiguously on him). Of course, that’s merely evidence. Its of course possible the other theory is correct and Manti was just adding his lies to other lies that were being fed to him. But I don’t think one theory is so much more likely then the other as you present. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/189 "2013-01-18T18:22:56Z")
[Someone may have linked to this article earlier because the general idea has come up in this thread, but in case there was no link…](http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8856519/manti-teo-talked-girlfriend-knowing-hoax) > [@](#): > > Anonymous teammates have said in the past few days that they questioned the entire girlfriend scenario. > > One former teammate told ESPN’s Bob Holtzman on Wednesday that players knew the woman wasn’t really his girlfriend even though Te’o played that up as his tragic story was being told. > > Multiple media reports also have said players thought that Te’o had only met Kekua once and that it wasn’t really accurate to call her his girlfriend. But as condolences poured in, Te’o “played along,” according to the teammate, who wished to remain anonymous. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/190 "2013-01-18T18:24:51Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Maybe he got got Catfished? Most assuradly _NOT!_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/191 "2013-01-18T19:24:41Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > My understanding of Board policy is that block quotes are used for literally quoting what someone said, while quotation marks can be used to summarize. You said there was one piece of evidence that Manti was lying, but then said that piece wasn’t convincing (and put “evidence” in scare quotes) so I summarized your statement as saying there was “no evidence”. First, I don’t think you were intentionally doing anything intentionally deceptive using the quotes. Please don’t think that. But the impression it gives everyone else is that I specifically said those words (it’s not really an impression, that’s what " " means). If that’s the boards policy, that’s messed up because it could lead to serious confusion. I do use “scare” quotes, though. So, hmmm. > [@](#): > > My point is that there’s pretty strong reason for thinking Manti was in on it. He certainly lied about having met his gf. The hoax was in a large part due to lies that originated with him. Its of course possible that he was in turn being lied to about the rest of it, but our main reason for thinking that’s so is his own claims, and we already know he’s been dishonest. And of course, there’s a pretty strong Occam’s razor argument that there isn’t two layers of hoaxers pulling off two sets of difficult to execute hoaxes. > > (plus, at least a few times he seems to have lied even once he knew “Lennay” was not dead. In those cases the hoaxing is unambiguously on him). > > Of course, that’s merely evidence. Its of course possible the other theory is correct and Manti was just adding his lies to other lies that were being fed to him. But I don’t think one theory is so much more likely then the other as you present. His lies only let you become aware of the hoax (via the media interviews). The hoax existed with or without those interviews. re: met. From Te’o to SI regarding how they met: > [@](#): > > We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin. And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular. SI’s Pete Thamel thinking back when he interviewed Te’o: > [@](#): > > He never specified that he’d met her in person, and I didn’t ask. Why would you ask someone if he’d actually met his girlfriend who recently died? And there’s a (possible - I can’t find it to quote/link) Te’o tweet that says nice to have met you (or something like that) - before her death, like when they “met.” Everything else is a journalist opinion or not a statement from Manti Te’o. So lies or embellishments. Lies to create/further a known hoax for extraordinary reasons. Or Lies to embellish an online relationship with a girl to make it not seem as weird - like she was really a girlfriend and not strictly an online romance. The lies at most only lead to a couple meetings over many years span. If it was planned, what does a 99% online relationship accomplish vs. a wholly online relationship? If it was not planned, it just sounds like he’d rather have people believe he met someone in a normal way. So Judge the evidence. I did. I’ve surely made my opinion clear and will eat tons of crow if I’m wrong. But I’m Judging the _evidence_. Please show me more source material if there is some. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/192 "2013-01-18T19:35:42Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > And there’s a (possible - I can’t find it to quote/link) Te’o tweet that says nice to have met you (or something like that) - before her death, like when they “met.” Everything else is a journalist opinion or not a statement from Manti Te’o. So lies or embellishments. Lies to create/further a known hoax for extraordinary reasons. Or Lies to embellish an online relationship with a girl to make it not seem as weird - like she was really a girlfriend and not strictly an online romance. Or Te’o inflated a story about someone he knew online to make it sound like she was his girlfriend, allowing him to get extra mileage out of the tragedy - only to find himself in trouble when it turned out to be a lie. So far it’s just a supposition backed by an anonymous teammate or two, but I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the facts.\* We know he fibbed on some occasions, so it’s not hard to believe he fibbed more even if there isn’t proof of that at this point. \*Actually it may not be consistent with what he told his family. Hmm. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/193 "2013-01-18T19:41:39Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > Everything else is a journalist opinion or not a statement from Manti Te’o. Te’o and Notre Dame both said that Te’o knew his girlfriend was a hoax on December 6th. On December 8th, Te’o did an interview with a South Bend television station about the Heisman, and he said: "“I mean, I don’t like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I’ve really tried to go to children’s hospitals and see, you know, children.” On Dec. 10th, he did an interview in LA, and said: ““She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play”. So we know that Te’o, after he has admitted he knew his girlfriend was a hoax, was lying about it to the media. I suppose you could assert that his lies just happened to start on the 8th, but I’m skeptical because I don’t trust anything Te’o says now. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/194 "2013-01-18T19:53:30Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Te’o and Notre Dame both said that Te’o knew his girlfriend was a hoax on December 6th. On December 8th, Te’o did an interview with a South Bend television station about the Heisman, and he said: "“I mean, I don’t like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I’ve really tried to go to children’s hospitals and see, you know, children.” On Dec. 10th, he did an interview in LA, and said: ““She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play”. > > So we know that Te’o, after he has admitted he knew his girlfriend was a hoax, was lying about it to the media. I suppose you could assert that his lies just happened to start on the 8th, but I’m skeptical because I don’t trust anything Te’o says now. This is one of the reasons why, as I said above, it was a huge mistake for Notre Dame and Te’o to sit on it, they had to know that the girlfriends death was still going to be a part of the narrative. All the lies told after that December 6 date were active deceptions, while prior to that they may not have been complicit in the deceit, they clearly were after that date. They needed to come clean immediately, that is my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/195 "2013-01-18T19:58:03Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Te’o and Notre Dame both said that Te’o knew his girlfriend was a hoax on December 6th. On December 8th, Te’o did an interview with a South Bend television station about the Heisman, and he said: "“I mean, I don’t like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I’ve really tried to go to children’s hospitals and see, you know, children.” On Dec. 10th, he did an interview in LA, and said: ““She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play”. > > So we know that Te’o, after he has admitted he knew his girlfriend was a hoax, was lying about it to the media. I suppose you could assert that his lies just happened to start on the 8th, but I’m skeptical because I don’t trust anything Te’o says now. Maybe he should have said this, “…oh, and real quick, my dead girlfriend, the one I bawled about in front of all my teammates when I found out she died, she called me the other day to tell me she wasn’t dead after all. But yea, the zone defense is all about hitting the gaps…” Pat Forde offers his opinion that it took 10 days to process. Te’o thought it was his girlfriend’s sister tricking him. It’s a lie, i get that and don’t dispute it. I don’t think it’s sinister or a hoax. And if there’s any possible money link or they were asking for money once he turned pro, I would actively advise him to wait for that so it would turn criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/196 "2013-01-18T20:12:21Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > Pat Forde offers his opinion that it took 10 days to process. I didn’t know Forde was a psychologist, and that’s kind of stupid. He said he lost his girlfriend to cancer days after he found out that she was not who he thought and knew for a fact she wasn’t dead. That’s pretty straightforward. The national championship game was a month after Te’o found out the whole thing was a hoax. Te’o didn’t lie at the press conference, but he shaded his words to let people go on believing the girlfriend thing. I can understand why he did that, but you can’t call it anything other than self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/197 "2013-01-18T20:30:16Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > But the impression it gives everyone else is that I specifically said those words (it’s not really an impression, that’s what " " means). If that’s the boards policy, that’s messed up because it could lead to serious confusion. Well, I only use it to summarize what a poster said in a post where I also block quote their actual words, so hopefully there isn’t too much confusion. But I’ll pay attention and if I notice people in other threads getting confused by the device, I’ll knock it off. In any case, we seem to be on the same page now. > [@](#): > > The hoax existed with or without those interviews. You’re assuming your conclusion. If Manti didn’t know the gf was fake, then the hoax existed without the interviews. If he did know she was fake, then obviously there is no hoax without the public to use as a “mark”, and there was no hoax without the interviews. (technically I guess Manti could still be hoaxing his friends and relatives in that case, but there wouldn’t be a hoax that anyone outside his immediate circle would care about anyways) > [@](#): > > re: met. Well, he definitely unambiguously lied at the Heisman conference, since by then even by his own account he knew he was being led on. Manti’s father said Manti and the gf would met multiple times in Hawaii. Its possible, I guess, that Manti’s father is the one lying there, but then you need yet a third layer of people blatantly lying. (its also why I thought at first it might be a cover for a gay relationship, “bye dad, I’m off to see my gf that you’ve never met whose totally a woman”) Manti said they talked frequently on the phone. This isn’t definitely a lie, but it seems pretty unlikely unless there was yet a third hoaxer. He also apparently talked to her extended family, which requires either somebody able to play multiple characters with multiple genders or a pretty large group of people putting a lot of energy into fucking with him. Again, that’s not impossible, but it’s a lot harder to believe then the idea that a guy that’s already shown himself willing to lie and mislead regarding the topic was just making up the phonecalls. So I think its pretty clear that Manti was leading the media on to feed the story of his tragic loss. That itself was a hoax. Its certainly possible that he in turn was playing off a smaller relationship that he thought was real (at least until Dec 6th), but I think your underselling the simpler theory: that there was only one hoax perpetrated by Manti and he and the other hoaxer were both in on it. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/198 "2013-01-18T20:36:23Z")
You’re right…Te’o will have to answer that, not Forde. He offered a “source” but it was not named so I labeled it his opinion. Here’s the context of what Pat Forde wrote: > [@](#): > > While in Orlando for the ESPN awards show in early December, Te’o was contacted by someone purporting to be his dead girlfriend. According to sources, it took an unnerved Te’o several more conversations over the course of 10 days to become convinced that he was the victim of a hoax. He hadn’t told his parents yet, much less anyone at the school. > > The disclosure to those people began Christmas Eve and extended through Dec. 27. By then, Te’o was finished with media obligations until the team arrived in South Florida for the BCS championship game. Notre Dame’s private investigation was underway, and would be until Jan. 4. > > If you want to believe Te’o and Notre Dame should have come forward there, in that setting, and blown the whistle on the charade, be my guest. What school in America would volunteer that shocking, salacious, downright weird story to a national media horde in the days before playing for the national title? > > I’ll answer that: none. And plenty of schools have been known to cover up far worse. Anyways, I’ve said all I can and probably way more. Just saw **Simplicio** post… We’re good re: quotes - it’s just seemed extra relevant in this thread. And all your questions have been addressed previously or in this post. Except for the Dad quote, no explanation. Other than the source article has been removed (I don’t know why) and the quote only lives in other rehashed articles. “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has time to put on its pants.” [Related Article](http://magazine.nd.edu/news/36990-lazy-i-opinions-are-cheap/). ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/199 "2013-01-18T20:58:55Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Or Te’o inflated a story about someone he knew online to make it sound like she was his girlfriend, allowing him to get extra mileage out of the tragedy - only to find himself in trouble when it turned out to be a lie. So far it’s just a supposition backed by an anonymous teammate or two, but I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the facts.\* We know he fibbed on some occasions, so it’s not hard to believe he fibbed more even if there isn’t proof of that at this point. > > \*Actually it may not be consistent with what he told his family. Hmm. Or, because he genuinely believed a girl that loved him really died, he didn’t want to downplay that by saying he barely knew her. I mean, after she’s dead, what good can come from him saying, hey please don’t make a big deal about this, we were only an online couple? > [@Hamlet](#): > > Te’o and Notre Dame both said that Te’o knew his girlfriend was a hoax on December 6th. No, they said he received a call from the cell phone of his supposedly dead girlfriend on Dec. 6. The call didn’t say, “it was all a hoax!” The caller was actually pretending to be the dead girlfriend again. I read elsewhere that Teo thought at first maybe her sister was playing a really bad joke. After a week or 10 days he decided he had, indeed, been played. He had not difinitively drawn that conclusion by Dec. 8, though. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424/200 "2013-01-18T21:00:10Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Or, because he genuinely believed a girl that loved him really died, he didn’t want to downplay that by saying he barely knew her. I mean, after she’s dead, what good can come from him saying, hey please don’t make a big deal about this, we were only an online couple? EDIT: That possibility is already out there and it may be the leading option. I was suggesting something else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manti-teos-fake-dead-girlfriend/647424.md?page=11)