The bizarre catfishing scandal that embroiled Notre Dame senior standout linebacker Manti Te’o a decade ago is now the subject of a Netflix documentary
In interviews at the time, he spoke about the loss of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, a Stanford student who had died of leukemia at nearly the same time Te’o’s grandmother passed away. Curiously, he said he had never met Kekua in person but only spoken with her virtually. As it turned out, she was entirely fictional.
Ronaiah “Naya” Tuiasosopo had created the persona for Kekua and interacted with Te'o. After Notre Dame's season was complete, it was reported that Te'o was a subject of elongated catfishing scheme and Kekau was not real. Tuiasosopo also appears in the documentary. "I didn't know what to believe," Te'o said upon learning of the hoax. “What do you do with that information? Do you call somebody and say, ‘Hey, I just found out somebody's alive?’"
Te’o said another reason he is telling his story now is to make sure people understand he actually did lose somebody during that tumultuous period in his life. “I want to bring more light to my grandmother because it is almost like this story overshadows her,” he said. “If there’s anything I’d like to do, it’s to give my grandmother that respect that has kind of been missed the last ten years.”
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