Tagged: Manti Te o

Report: Manti Te’o admits to ‘tailored’ accounts in girlfriend hoax but denies being part of scheme

Yahoo! Sports

Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o finally answered questions Friday night about the Lennay Kekua girlfriend hoax, saying in an exclusive interview with ESPN that he wasn’t part of it – although he “tailored” his accounts of meeting the woman – and that the alleged mastermind of the hoax apologized to him.

The Fighting Irish linebacker and Heisman Trophy finalist at the center of a fake girlfriend controversy that has captivated the sports world for three days spoke to the network’s Jeremy Schaap. Te’o gave the interview with a lawyer seated next to him in a conference room at the IMG Training Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he is preparing for the NFL draft. There were no TV cameras at the 2½-hour interview, which was recorded.

Although Te’o came to Notre Dame officials about the hoax in late December, he said a group of people connected to the perpetrators of the hoax showed up at the team hotel in the days leading up to the BCS Championship game in Miami. Te’o told Schaap the incident affected his play in the game, which the Irish lost 42-14.

Full story: Yahoo! Sports

Sources: Manti Te’o’s representatives passed on chance to release story about fictional girlfriend

Yahoo! Sports

In the days following the BCS championship game, there was significant internal debate at Notre Dame about when to go public with the revelation that star linebacker Manti Te’o’s girlfriend was a hoax, Yahoo! Sports has learned.

Some administrators were pressing for a unilateral public disclosure by the school, while others wanted to let Te’o himself make the stunning news public, the source said. Notre Dame officials were in contact with Te’o’s agent, Tom Condon of Creative Artists Agency, and were told the Heisman Trophy runner-up planned to release his version of events Monday. The decision was made to wait and let Te’o and CAA control the message.

But that disclosure never came, and instead the news broke in a bombshell report from Deadspin on Wednesday afternoon.

“Their plan was Monday,” the source said. “In hindsight, we shouldn’t have given them that time.”

Full story: Yahoo! Sports

Manti Te’o was Catfished? Wait, what’s that?

Yahoo! Sports

As Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick attempted to explain the elaborate hoax that caused star linebacker Manti Te’o to believe in the life, love and death of his online girlfriend Lennay Kekua, he referenced a movie called “Catfish.”

“Catfish” was a cult movie, one not a lot of people saw, but was turned into a reality TV show on MTV.

It also scared the few who did see it.

The premise of the movie, which premiered in 2010, was this: A man named Nev Schulman fell in love with a girl after establishing an online and telephonic relationship with her. He never meets her, knows only what she tells him and gleans the rest from photos and posts on Facebook.

Full story: Yahoo! Sports

Legend of Manti Te’o’s girlfriend: a tall tale everyone wanted to believe

Yahoo! Sports

“Manti, describe your girlfriend to me.”

I knew nothing about Lennay Kekua. Was she pretty? Smart? Funny? Blonde? Brunette? Did she like football? The only thing I thought I knew was that she had died, and that Manti Te’o, the best linebacker in college football and her boyfriend, had dominated a football game for Notre Dame a couple days later.

What I didn’t know, and what Te’o apparently didn’t know, either, is that Lennay Kekua wasn’t pretty or smart or funny or blonde or brunette or a football fan or a far-too-young leukemia victim. She didn’t exist.

Full story: Yahoo! Sports