Notre Dame · 2012
The Girlfriend Who Never Existed
Manti Te'o played the best season of his life while grieving a girl the whole country cried about. She had never been born.
October 2011
A girl on the phone
Te'o grew up in Laie, Hawaii and came to Notre Dame in 2009 as one of the best linebacker recruits in the country. In October 2011 he started trading messages on Twitter with an account belonging to Lennay Kekua, who said she was a Stanford student in California.
They talked on the phone almost every night. They never met in person. In 2012 Te'o was told she had been badly hurt in a car accident in April and diagnosed with leukemia in June.
One week in September
- His grandmother, Annette Santiago, dies at 72. This was real.
- A caller who says he is Lennay's brother tells Te'o she has died.
- Te'o makes 12 tackles as Notre Dame beats Michigan State 20 to 3.
- The day of Lennay's funeral, he is told. Te'o stays to play Michigan because she made him promise.
September 22, 2012
Two interceptions on funeral day
Te'o picked off Michigan twice that night and Notre Dame won 13 to 6. Coach Brian Kelly gave him the game ball to send to Lennay's family in Hawaii.
From then on, every broadcast told the story. Notre Dame went 12 and 0 and played for the national title. Te'o won seven national awards.
The echo
Everybody told the story
The biggest names in sports media repeated what Te'o and his family said. Look at what each one used as proof.
On December 6, 2012 Te'o's phone rang from Lennay's number. The voice he knew as hers said she was alive. Four days later he still told the Los Angeles Times she had died. He told his coaches on December 26. Nobody else knew.
January 16, 2013
Run the background check
After an anonymous tip, Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey of Deadspin did what no one had done. They looked Lennay Kekua up. Run their four checks.
Every one of these tools was available to every reporter in September.
The other end of the line
Who was Lennay?
The voice
Lennay was created by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a 22 year old from Lancaster, California who knew Te'o through family and church. Tuiasosopo did Lennay's voice on the phone for more than a year and invented her brother, her accident, her cancer and her death.
Tuiasosopo now lives as a woman named Naya and told her side in a 2022 Netflix documentary.
The face
The photos belonged to Diane O'Meara, a California woman who went to high school with Tuiasosopo. She had never met or spoken to Te'o. She learned her face had been on national television when reporters called.
The fallout
What the story was worth
Before the truth came out, the story helped carry Te'o to New York for the Heisman ceremony on December 8, 2012. No player who only played defense had ever won it.
Heisman Trophy voting points, 2012
"Even if it didn't follow me, in my mind, it followed me."Manti Te'o to NPR, August 2022
"The forgiveness was given without the request."Te'o on Naya Tuiasosopo, NPR, August 2022
Sources. Deadspin, January 16, 2013, TIME timeline, NPR, 2013, NPR interview, 2022, Associated Press Heisman results via Fox Sports, Wikipedia summary. Videos play from YouTube.