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Manti Te'o says he didn't know about girlfriend hoax

410 views · Published 19 January 2013 · 0:07 · Indexed 31 October 2026

Channel: Stock Market LIVE · 2013 · Sports

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Manti Te'o insisted Friday to ESPN that he didn't help hatch the plan to create Lennay Kekua only to pretend she was the love of his life so he could tragically kill her off for publicity purposes that could propel him to a Heisman Trophy. 

That was the way part of Deadspin.com's original report on the hoax framed Te'o's involvement, although that was mostly drawn from a single unnamed source who claimed he was "80 percent sure" that Te'o was "in on it." 

"No," Te'o told reporter Jeremy Schaap in a 2½-hour off-camera interview in Florida, where he is training for the NFL draft. "Never. I wasn't faking it. I wasn't part of it."

This jibes with the conclusion Notre Dame reached in early January, after the school hired private investigators and forensic computer experts who went through Te'o's computer, emails, social-media accounts, phone bills and other documents. 

"Manti Te'o is the victim of this scam," Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Wednesday.
 
And at this point, while doubters, critics and those who are particularly troubled by the conduct of an emotive college kid they've never met will undoubtedly remain convinced to the contrary, it's the most believable scenario. No one has produced any evidence to suggest Te'o was in on it. None. 

The person most capable of changing that is Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who Notre Dame, among others, has fingered as the perpetrator of the hoax and thus someone with direct knowledge of how it went down. Tuiasosopo has remained hidden and silent, though, as stories of past similar conduct have emerged. 

Tuiasosopo did, according to ESPN, send direct messages to Te'o over Twitter on Wednesday. The messages acknowledged Tuiasosopo's role in running the scam, and he apologized to Te'o for it. Te'o allowed ESPN to read the messages. Te'o also claimed he spoke to Tuiasosopo on the phone Wednesday. If Tuiasosopo wants to dispute this or accuse Te'o directly, we're eager to hear it.
 
Te'o lied about his girlfriend -- to his family, his teammates and the media. He said they met face-to-face. He said she visited Hawaii. He detailed how they met. He came up with things that simply weren't true, because they couldn't be true even as the story of the dead girlfriend snowballed through the Fighting Irish's unbeaten regular season. 

Meanwhile, Notre Dame was so desperate to keep its star linebacker focused on winning the BCS national title game -- the Irish were blown out by Alabama anyway -- that it let a positive story it knew wasn't true get repeated and repeated in the buildup to the game. Better to stay silent than risk the humiliation rattling Teo's game, even though it may have anyway. 

To have hatched the plan is pure scoundrel, the act of a cold con man. Being too embarrassed to admit to your dad that you haven't actually met this girl you've fallen for is borne from a far more understandable motivation.

Manti Te'o isn't the first, or last, college kid who wasn't all that honest when describing a new relationship to his parents and friends. Really, Mom, we met at the library, definitely not at 3 a.m. in the basement of a fraternity party.
 
It's just in this case, Manti's dad, Brian Te'o began relaying these untruths to reporters who began telling stories of how Manti and Lennay met or how Lennay would visit or what Lennay looked like. Then more reporters told more stories and never checked to see if she even existed. 

This was a small private lie that grew into a massive public one. Manti added fuel by "tailor[ing] his stories" to the media. In the end, he never got himself out of it.
 
Even after the BCS disaster, when Notre Dame sources claim they encouraged Te'o to come forward, he instead tried to ride it out, perhaps naively thinking investigators for NFL teams -- let alone years of pro sports media -- weren't going to blow this open. 

Even now, after he became the center of a story of incalculable attention, he refused to go on TV and just own it, laugh at his foolishness and then sign an eHarmony endorsement. 

Instead, he went off camera. He trusts everyone will believe him. Schaap said Te'o was hoping this would just blow over so he could move on. 

Really? A story this big is just going to blow over? 

Here's the thing though, it might. If Te'o and Notre Dame are both telling the truth, a truth that is explainable and understandable, and nary a shred of evidence to the contrary arises, there really isn't so much more to go on here. 

This is an embarrassment for Te'o. This is proof he told some untruths and isn't infallible. But there are no crimes committed. Lying to the media is an industry, not a prosecuting offense. Some oversensitive football fans will never forgive him for whatever the heck he did to them, but how long can that anger carry the news?

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