Salon.com > Notre Dame

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo “deeply, romantically in love” with Manti Te’o

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:30:00 +0000

The Manti Te'o saga enters its third week today.

After Deadspin first broke the story on Jan. 16 that Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman runner-up Manti Te'o's girlfriend -- who had supposedly died earlier in the season -- wasn't real, the media began chipping away at an elaborate online hoax that left the media wondering whether Te'o was part of the scheme, or whether he really was somehow duped into falling in love with a fake woman.

Last week, Te'o spoke with Katie Couric to tell his side of the story, maintaining that he was the victim of an online hoax perpetrated by a man he believed to have been the fake girlfriend's cousin, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

This week, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo will speak out in his first televised interview since the story broke. In this preview, released today, Dr. Phil reveals that Tuiasosopo had fallen "deeply, romantically in love" with Te'o. "Are you then therefore gay?" asks Dr. Phil. Tuiasosopo responds, "When you put it that way, yes," adding, "I am confused."

What did Manti Te’o know about Lennay Kekua?

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:10:00 +0000

Sports reporters have been in a frenzy trying to determine to what extent, if any, Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman Trophy runner-up Manti Te’o was in on the hoax that's become one of the most confusing scandals in recent memory. The football star will give his first televised interview at 3 p.m. ET today with Katie Couric. This should catch you up on everything known so far about Manti Te'o and the death of his fake girlfriend:

The background:

Manti Te’o's success was one of the biggest college sports stories of 2012. He won eight postseason awards as a linebacker for Notre Dame, becoming one of the most decorated college football players of all time. He was runner-up for this year's Heisman Trophy, the most coveted individual prize in NCAA football and was projected to be a first-round NFL pick.

Until recently, Te'o was also living the life of a media darling. A devout Mormon, he identifies himself as family-oriented and religious. Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel, who wrote a cover story on Te’o in October, describes his celebrity appeal: “Te'o graduated from Barack Obama's high school, practices Mitt Romney's religion and has post football career goals similar to Tim Tebow's.”

The coverage of his football heroics was all the more adoring for the tragedies he overcame to achieve them. The story went that his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and his leukemia-stricken girlfriend, Melelengei “Lennay” Kekua, died within six hours of each other in September shortly before he delivered a dominating performance against Michigan State.

Last week the world learned that college sports’ most inspirational story was a fiction: After receiving an anonymous tip, Deadspin broke the news on Jan. 16 that Lennay Kekua did not die, because she had never existed in the first place.

Manti Te’o wants you to feel his pain

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:23:00 +0000

Manti Te'o knows he told a whopper. He stood before the world and spoke of the grief he felt for the girlfriend he lost to cancer, knowing full well that his beautiful, doomed Lennay Kekua never existed. But in an interview with Katie Couric airing Thursday afternoon, the Notre Dame linebacker makes a surprising defensive move.

After Deadspin earlier this month exposed the bizarre tale of the football player and the hoax he insists he was a victim of, Te'o still had to account for the fact that he'd continued to publicly play the part of the bereaved boyfriend for weeks after he discovered the ruse. In an interview with ESPN this week, Te'o defended the deception by couching it in the most innocent-sounding of terms, saying, "Not ever would I be part of this," and explaining that he continued to speak of his girlfriend because "I was confused. I didn't know … There were a whole bunch of possibilities going through my head." He did, however, admit that he "catered" his stories to seem like he and the fake girlfriend spent time together and that "I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, [my father] met her before she passed away. So people wouldn't think that I was some crazy dude."

Manti Te’o: I was duped!

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Manti Te'o really was the victim of an elaborate ruse. At least that's what Manti Te'o would have you think. In an interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, the fallen Notre Dame star insists he had no knowledge of the hoax allegedly perpetrated by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and two others to make him believe he was in a relationship with a woman named Lennay Kekua.

Some of Te'o's key claims from their 2 1/2-hour conversation:

• He tried to speak with Kekua via Skype and FaceTime on several occasions, but the person at the other end of the line was in what he called a "black box" and wasn't seen.

• He planned to meet Kekua in person several times, including in Los Angeles and Hawaii, but on each occasion she called off the meeting or sent others in her place.

• The first time he met Tuiasosopo was in Los Angeles. Notre Dame beat USC there on Nov. 24.

• A group of people connected to Tuiasosopo showed up at the team hotel, after curfew, for the Discover BCS National Championship Game in Miami. Te'o said he knew they were at the hotel because the group took photos in the hotel lobby. Someone in the group called Te'o, saying they were waiting for Kekua to join them in the lobby and asking if she was with him. Te'o then hung up. Te'o said it affected his play in the game, where Notre Dame lost to Alabama 42-14.

• Te'o was never asked for money during the plot, but Kekua once requested his checking account number in order to send him money. Te'o did not provide his account number.

According to Schaap, despite a preponderance of evidence, Te'o wasn't fully convinced his girlfriend didn't exist until just two days ago.

The mean nasty Internet killed Manti Te’o's fake dead girlfriend

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:04:00 +0000

Before the Internet, nobody ever fell victim to a hoax.

Before the Internet, superficiality did not exist. We all lived lives of profound and deep connection.

Before the Internet, Manti Te'o's girlfriend would have been constructed out of flesh and blood. And when she died, she'd really be dead.

All these important truths can be gleaned from "The Hoax of Digital Life," an opinion column by Timothy Egan published in the New York Times on Friday.

Egan's not down with the virtual life: The whole bizarre fake dead girlfriend saga that engulfed star Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o? It's the Internet's fault!

The Internet is the cause of much of today’s commitment-free, surface-only living; it’s also the explanation for why someone could tumble head-over-heels for a pixelated cipher. Online dating was only the start of what led us down this road."

Te’o called himself a victim of an elaborate hoax. If he’s telling the truth, he’s right in one sense, but wrong in his conclusion. He’s a victim of his age, people who are more willing to embrace fake life through a screen than the real world beyond their smartphone.

Armstrong and Te’o's apologies could use some performance enhancement

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:55:00 +0000

This week, two very different athletes came under intense, worldwide scrutiny for their elaborate deceptions. And in light of a deluge of unassailable evidence, Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o faced different media firestorms and had to hold themselves accountable. Your mom said it best: Are they sorry they did it, or are they just sorry they got caught? But neither Armstrong nor Te'o seems sorry at all.

At first glance, Armstrong and Te'o would appear to have little in common beyond professional athleticism and a penchant for elaborate ruses. In an interview with our national confessor in chief Oprah Winfrey, the 41-year-old Armstrong acknowledged that he'd been doping up a storm throughout his professional cycling career, including his seven winning Tour de France races. Meanwhile, after a sensational exposé in Deadspin, Notre Dame linebacker Te'o admitted that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who'd tragically died of leukemia in September, had never existed at all. And it's in the way that both men have handled their deceptions that another commonality has emerged – neither one will ever win a prize for World's Greatest Apologizer.

Why do we keep getting suckered by stories like Manti Te’o?

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:34:00 +0000

When lawyers try cases, they have to deal with burdens of persuasion and standards of proof. For example, when the prosecution attempts to convict someone of a crime, it has the burden of persuasion -- before hearing any evidence the jury is supposed to presume the defendant is innocent -- and the jury is not supposed to convict the defendant unless the prosecution demonstrates the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

I would like to propose the following rule for journalists: When presented with a feel-good story on a sports-related subject, you should presume the story is fabricated, unless persuaded by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.

This is just one of the many lessons to be extracted from the increasingly bizarre story of Manti Te’o, the star football player whose heart-rending narrative about the simultaneous death of his grandmother and his girlfriend turned out to have been invented out of whole cyber-cloth.

(Another lesson is that administrators at Notre Dame are far more likely to weep over the imaginary death of a nonexistent girl than they are to shed tears for a real girl who actually committed suicide, after allegedly being sexually assaulted by one of Teo’s teammates.)

Notre Dame’s real dead woman

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:53:00 +0000

Less than a day into the Manti Te'o revelations, we've heard more about a fake dead girlfriend of a Notre Dame football player than a real dead girl. Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide, not long after being intimidated by Notre Dame football players for reporting a sexual assault by one of their teammates. A second woman who was taken to the hospital for a rape exam declined to formally accuse another Notre Dame football player after getting a series of bullying texts from players.

The handful of people who immediately took note of the contrast in the attention — both by the press and by the university — are absolutely right to be angry. But no one should be surprised.

Was ESPN announcer Brent Musberger being a creep?

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:45:00 +0000

Gosh, she's pretty. So very pretty. I'm sorry, what we were talking about? Oh, right, Katherine Webb, Brent Musberger, football. Hang on a minute. I'm getting lost in those piercing eyes again.

Katherine Webb has that effect on people. On Monday, the 23-year-old 2012 Miss Alabama became an overnight star when the cameras strayed away from the Alabama–Notre Dame game – and her boyfriend, quarterback AJ McCarron. "Do you see that lovely lady over there?" enthused ESPN announcer Brent Musberger, a man five decades years her senior.

"Wow, I'm telling you. You quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman! Wow! Whoa!" said Musberger, gushing like a guy coming off a juice cleanse in an Outback. "If you're a youngster in Alabama," he added, "start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with Pop."

ESPN announcers pathetically drool over quarterback’s girlfriend

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

So there was a big football game yesterday. And while I boycotted it, apparently ESPN announcers Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musburger had some time between plays to devote to ogling the Alabama quarterback’s girlfriend. Some real classy stuff:

“When you’re a quarterback at Alabama, you see that lovely lady there? She does go to Auburn, I’ll admit that, but she’s also Miss Alabama, and that’s A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend. Wow, I’m telling ya, you quarterbacks, you get all the good looking women. What a beautiful woman! Whoa! So if you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with pops.”