On Sept. 12 of last year, Manti Te’o found out that his online girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, tragically died of leukemia, less than 24 hours after his beloved grandmother, Annette Santiago, passed away as well. A few weeks ago, Deadspin.com released a shocking story that Kekua was not dead, but more importantly, she never existed in the first place.
Their online relationship seems to have begun in October 2011, via Twitter. From all accounts, they started off as friends, but eventually their relationship began to develop into one of the romantic variety. They texted, emailed and even held conversations over the phone for over a year. He supported her through her battle with leukemia, and even spoke to her comatose body over the phone after a tragic car accident. Little did he know that the woman he had grown to love was an elaborate chain of lies.
This hoax was orchestrated by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who was a family friend of Te’o. According to The Kevin Burke Report, Tuiasosopo admitted to Diane O’Meara that he not only did it to Te’o, but to several other people using the alias of Lennay Kekua. Apparently he admitted this to her after she confronted him about using her photos to create Kekua. Many people believe that Tuiasosopo and Te’o created this elaborate publicity stunt together, but that does not appear to be the case. Te’o’s family and friends have all backed up Te’o on his word that his feelings were genuine, and Tuiasosopo has admitted that Te’o had nothing to do with the hoax.
The only thing that Te’o has lied to the press about was the fact that he made it seem as though he had actually met Kekua after a football game at Stanford. Believing that she was a Stanford student and feeling as though he would be judged or his feelings for Kekua dismissed, one little white lie did not seem so bad, which FirstPost shows him admitting and apologizing for.
Though nothing is particularly clear as to why Tuiasosopo did this, it is fairly clear that he did. O’Meara came to the press and informed them that she knew Tuiasosopo and that he had actually requested a picture of her holding a sign that read “MSMK”- part of Kekua’s Twitter account name- supposedly to support his cousin who was in a tragic car accident. Remembering him from high school, she obliged, and was rather upset to find out her photos were being used in such a malicious manner.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter who did what or for what reasons. Why does the media feel the need to completely ruin this poor kid’s life for the entertainment of those around him. If it was a horrible prank pulled on him, isn’t he humiliated enough? Dealing with the loss of his grandmother, and essentially losing the woman he loved twice had to have been difficult enough for Te’o without being placed behind a magnifying glass, accused of making it all up, and even having his sexuality taken into question. This is what is wrong with media today.