Newsstand: Former Notre Dame LB Manti Te’o featured in upcoming Netflix documentary detailing catfishing hoax
The 2012 catfishing hoax that targeted Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o is now the subject of a Netflix documentary. “UNTOLD: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist” will premiere on Aug. 16 — and with Te’o as a participant.
Te’o will appear in the documentary, which he promoted on his Instagram page Tuesday. Irish athletics director Jack Swarbrick and catfisher Naya Tuiasosopo will also be featured in it, among others.
“From Notre Dame to the NFL, Manti Te’o’s future in football showed promise until a secret online relationship sent his life and career spiraling,” Netflix’s synopsis reads.
Te’o was the star of Notre Dame’s undefeated 2012 regular season, in which the Irish climbed to No. 1 in all the major rankings and reached the BCS National Championship Game. He had seven interceptions and was a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Early that season, Te’o said his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, had died of leukemia the same September day his grandmother passed away. His personal life became a stirring storyline of his All-American season and Notre Dame’s run.
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In January 2013, though, Deadspin reported there was no evidence that Kekua existed and that Te’o had never met Kekua in person. Te’o “met” Kekua over Twitter, per the Deadspin report. Notre Dame hired private investigators to dive into it, and they determined Te’o had only an online relationship with the person he thought was Kekua.
“Over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online,” Te’o said in a statement. “We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.
“To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.”
The documentary is part of Netflix’s UNTOLD series.
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