Te’o says that he received a phone call in December of 2012 from Kekua claiming she wasn’t dead. So I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away so that people wouldn’t think that I was some crazy dude.” How did Te’o find out he had been ‘catfished’? “I knew that - I even knew, that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn’t meet, and that alone - people find out that this girl who died, I was so invested in, I didn’t meet her, as well. “That goes back to what I did with my dad,” Te’o said. Te’o admitted in the ESPN interview that that had never happened. Te’o detailed in a January 2013 interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap that he did not know Kekua until early 2010 when they connected on Facebook during his freshman year at Notre Dame.Ī South Bend Tribune report had said Te’o and Kekua met in person in the fall of 2009 after the Irish’s 45-38 loss at Stanford, where Kekua was allegedly a student. When did Manti Te’o’s ‘relationship’ with Lennay Kekua start? The story of Te’o and his fake girlfriend is a complex and mysterious one, which Netflix’s new two-part documentary “ Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist” attempts to unravel.Īs the scandal surges back into the national conversation with the docuseries debuting Tuesday, we have you covered with a refresher on the biggest questions surrounding the situation. Just a few months later, a bombshell Deadspin report revealed Kekua never existed. Fueling him were the early-season deaths of his grandmother and purported girlfriend Lennay Kekua. Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o was the face of the Irish’s resurgence in 2012, named Heisman runner-up as he helped the program to an undefeated regular season and national title game appearance. Te’o," he wrote in a sweet Instagram post.It’s been nearly a decade since one of college football’s biggest scandals rocked the sports world. "I couldn’t give you the world but I think I did better … I gave you my last name and it looks good on you Mrs. Yup! It looks like Manti recovered from the emotional trauma of such a public catfishing scandal because in 2020, he revealed that he had married his girlfriend, Jovi Nicole Engbino. It’s hard to say for sure, but everyone knows football players make bank, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has made several million dollars during his years in the league. Right now, he's currently considered a "free agent," per USA Today. So far, he has played for several NFL teams including the San Diego Chargers, the New Orleans Saints, and the Chicago Bears. Manti was drafted by the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Some people accused Manti of being in on the scheme for publicity, and reporter Katie Couric also asked some super pointed questions about his sexuality after the scandal broke, per Yahoo Sports. Still, he was the butt of a lot of jokes as he was preparing for the NFL draft. Manti was a star college player at the time and he has continued to be a big name in football over the years. What happened after the catfishing scandal was revealed? With all of this going on, it’s only natural to have questions about where Manti is now. Everything came to a head when Manti announced that his "girlfriend" had died of leukemia six hours after his grandmother passed away, per Sports Illustrated, and the story began to unravel. Manti formed a relationship with the fake Lennay despite never meeting her IRL. The Netflix documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist, details how a person named Naya Tuiasosopo pretended to be a woman named Lennay Kekua.
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