Manti Te'o Either Perpetrates a Hoax or is a Victim

Is Oprah available next week for a confessional interview?

 

He perpetuated the hoax, as did his family. Read the entire Deadspin article (it will take about 20 minutes to get through it). Also, the Notre Dame AD basically threw Manti under the bus during a conference. Someone asked about them meeting at Stanford, and he said, "Well, that's not what he told us." He lied, his family lied, and Notre Dame went with the lie because it was good for recruiting if they started doing well, and getting good press regarding this story. The media are a bunch of morons for not even bothering to corroborate the "death" of the fake girl, even when red flags were raised. The original reporter said he couldn't find an obituary for the made up girl, nor anything about the alleged car accident, and when the reporter asked further about the death, Te'o told him to back off. Rather than try to refute any of this, or simply not report it because he couldn't, y'know, back any of it up, he simply went on the word of Te'o. Here's what the reporter said tonight about it...

The media wasn't duped. They were complicit from the beginning, and that just got the ball rolling. This kid is a blatant liar, and so are his parents for allowing him to lie like that, and further perpetuating the lie. To take something to this extreme is almost psychopathic. Some folks suggest that he's hiding the fact that he might be gay. Others are saying he's just insane. All I know is that the kid is a freaking psycho for making up someone, and then making up their death to hide whatever he's really hiding. That's psychotic.

 

As if his draft stock couldn't drop even lower after his performance in the NCG . . .

 

From ESPN

Reagan Mauia, an Arizona Cardinals fullback, said he believes Kekua existed because he met her in person when he and other Polynesian teammates and Pittsburgh Steelers starTroy Polamalu went to do charity work in American Samoa in June 2011. "This was before her and Manti," Mauia said Wednesday evening. "I don't think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. We would talk off and on, just checking up on each other kind of thing. I am close to her family. When she was going through the loss of her father, I was -- I offered a comforting shoulder and just someone to bounce her emotions off. That was just from meeting her in Samoa." Mauia said Tuiasosopo -- whom Mauia believes is Kekua's cousin -- introduced the two. After the initial meeting, Mauia said he met her at an "after-party" for all of the athletes involved in the camp. "She was tall," he said. "Volleyball-type of physique. She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model ... " He said it is his understanding that Kekua's mother is operating her Twitter account. He said he'd never met her mother. When told by a reporter that she apparently might not have existed, Mauia said "No, she is real."

 

WHAT THE ACTUAL PHUCKKKK. LMAO this is mind boggling

btw NFC Scouts have reported to have crossed Manti Te'o from their Big Boards all together.. geeez

 

We're going to have to wait a little to see all of this unravel.

 

I am sorry, but that whole sob story back in Sept and October was so over the top that College Game Day and SI just creamed their pants with their overly effusive anointment of this guy. Voila, he becomes a national figure in CFB and the rest is history.

 

I was thinking about his draft status this morning. The NFL (and college football for that matter) gives little to no shits about "character issues" despite what it claims. If someone is good enough, they're going to get their shot and owners, coaches, teammates and fans will shrug most things off because winning is what matters.

I have to wonder though, in the macho world of professional athlete culture if this guy could hold up due to the absolute hell/hazing you know he's in for from veteran players. Despite Tebow's oddity among high profile athletes as a self-proclaimed virgin, I feel like teammates can kind of just be like, "Weird, whatever, it's his life...", but making up a girlfriend or being duped? This guy won't stand a chance in a locker room and I imagine a lot of teams are just like, "No thanks, headcase" right now.

 

Vontaze Burfict 2.0 imo

 

I wonder if he really was duped. I think he thought he was talking to a real person. but when people wanted to know more about his imaginary g/f, he was embarrassed, and he told a little lie to cover it up, but then had to tell a bigger lie to cover up the little lie, then an even bigger one to cover up the 2nd lie, etc.
in other words, he initially started out the victim of a hoax, and then felt like he had to keep it going to avoid embarrassment. I think at a certain point, he probably realized it was a hoax. but if it came out, the embarrassment from it would have been huge. so he tried to keep it going with lies. oh the tangled web of lies we weave...

 

According to the report, whenever Te'o said he was allegedly with the fake girl, someone was always hanging around, and that was the guy who created the fake girl. Like I said, the kid knew what he was doing.

 

are you saying that you think Te'o was in on it from the start?

 

Absolutely. Either he's gay, his family wants him to avoid women at all costs because of his religious beliefs, or he's some kind of psychopath. Either way, he wasn't duped. He was part of it, and now that everyone is in damage control, they're going to start pushing blame away from where it should be placed: Manti Te'o himself.

 

admittedly, I haven't read the deadspin article, but I can't imagine that he would do this himself - unless he's an absolute psychopath, as you say. so much to be lost, so little to be gained.

 

Read the article. Seriously, it's a great piece. If you need a half hour to kill (it is long), read it in full. A lot of blanks are filled in that you're not going to get from the mainstream media because there's so much to detail.

 

Why would the AD of ND take a couple of shots on this? He should have sold Teo down the river so fast, unless.....ND was aware that it was BS from the start and milked it to generate publicity. People can be whores for publicity.

 

READ THE ARTICLE

 

yes sir! right away sir!

 

okay, I read the article. I'm still not sure why people think that Te'o was necessarily in on this.
apparently this Tuiasosopo was close enough friends with Te'o that he would know all these details about Te'o's life and his situation that he could write (and get some girl pretending to be the g/f) to say the right things back to Te'o. it seems like the entirety of the speculation that Te'o was in on the hoax is based on his friendship with Tuiasosopo. I can believe that Tuiasosopo was behind the fictitious g/f. but that doesn't necessarily mean that Te'o was in on it as well just because him and Tuiasosopo knew each other. it certainly could be the case, but that isn't proof.

"A friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told us he was "80 percent sure" that Manti Te'o was "in on it," and that the two perpetrated Lennay Kekua's death with publicity in mind. According to the friend, there were numerous photos of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and Te'o together on Tuiasosopo's now-deleted Instagram account.
The sheer quantity of falsehoods about Manti's relationship with Lennay makes that friend, and another relative of Ronaiah's, believe Te'o had to know the truth. Mostly, though, the friend simply couldn't believe that Te'o would be stupid enough—or Ronaiah Tuiasosopo clever enough—to sustain the relationship for nearly a year."

this is the only thing that this writer is basing his conclusion that Te'o was in on the hoax. something is fishy for sure, but I'm not sure that based on this, I necessarily buy that Te'o was in on it. he would have too much to lose. and all this for some publicity stunt or a prank? the guy was getting plenty of publicity without doing something like this. I don't see a motive. the Heisman? I don't see Te'o risking something like this just to get some feel-good votes for the Heisman.

 

Didn't Te'o say he seen his soon to be "gf" in the stands after a Stanford vs. Notre Dame game and then preceded to get her number??

Didn't he "SEND" white flowers to her!?!?!

Lets be serious.. Manti was whole-heartedly in this.

 

I don't know. early on in the deadspin articles, there are a lot of references to other articles - by ESPN, SI, and the South Bend Tribune. I'm assuming that either Manti or his father told those various things to the reporters for those different papers, but I didn't read the articles (I know, I know READ THE ARTICLE).
I'm not saying that Manti didn't lie (either to cover up an earlier lie, sensationalize the story, or cover up embarrassment), but he could still be the victim of the hoax.
he is reported to have sent her flowers, but he could just have sent the flowers to any address "she" (i.e. Tuiasosopo) told him to send it. for all he might have known, he was sending flowers to her.