Manti Te’o Admits To Katie Couric He Briefly Lied
In an interview with Katie Couric, Manti Te'o says that he did lie about his girlfriend but only for a month. You know, until everyone found out and he was forced to admit the truth. Manti says he did not lie until December. That left about a month until Deadspin broke the story last week. See, I think Manti got hoaxed, but I also think he is not totally innocent here but at least he is coming clean about it. He didn't have to say anything. He can lie to anyone he wants to as long as it is not the police. It is not like he had to tell the truth before some team is going to draft him to play for them.
I think he knew something...more than he is letting on.
ReplyDeleteThe people that care about this are from the same country she is.
ReplyDelete@vicki LMAO!! hilarious
DeleteWhy is this such a big story? Am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteAnyone else get the feeling he's gay, and the "girlfriend" provided a convenient cover?
ReplyDeleteAnyone else get the feeling he's gay, and the "girlfriend" provided a convenient cover?
ReplyDeleteBasil, no clue, but if we never hear from him again it will be too soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Enty on this. I think it was a hoax and that Manti fell for it, but I also think that he learned about the hoax long before he let on. And out of embarrassment, he lied to cover up. Understandable, but it made a bad situation worse.
ReplyDeleteBut if Manti is this easy to trick with a fake girl online, he's going to have to be really careful with the stealth real-life NFL groupies.
Even if he was hoaxed, he still deliberately played the story of the "love of his life" being a "dying girl" for all it was worth when he knew very well that he'd never even met her. In that sense, at least, he's lied all along, including possibly even to himself. Not that any of that is a big deal in the grand scheme of things, nor does it compare to the atrocities one reads and hears about every day in the news, except insofar as Te'o's integrity, or lack thereof is concerned. I wouldn't trust a guy like that as far as I could throw him.
ReplyDeleteI'm indifferent on this, but I do have a question. He lied about this girlfriend for a couple years - telling people how they met, talked about seeing each other, blah blah. He now says he lied about that stuff, because he was too embarrassed to admit his relationship was online only. Why are people so quick to accept that "confession" as truth, when he has already established a few years of lies? How do they not think it's just as easy for him to come up with THAT lie to cover his ass, and convince this other guy to take the fall for him so it doesn't hurt his career?
ReplyDeleteUGH, just shut up already
ReplyDelete@Robert, Yes! He milked it so much when he had the option of just not talking about it anymore. He didn't even give his poor grandma(who really did pass away) that much airtime.
ReplyDeleteHe totally knew, maybe not at the very beginning, but he had to have known. Your girlfriend, who you have been dating for at least a year, has leukemia and is DYING. You love this girl so so SO much, yet you don't make any attempt to visit her? Skype? FaceTime? That is shady to me, real shady.
ReplyDeleteAny story is a mix of importance + intrigue. This story is a 0 in importance, but a 9.5 in interest. All-American Notre Dame linebacker, Heisman Trophy runner-up being duped? It's a story, elevated because ND is back near the top of college football and have fans across the nation.
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn't he just say they've broken up. Why have her die?
ReplyDeleteHe knew all along. What an ass. It was all hype to get sympathy votes for the Heisman Trophy. What really would be a better story now is if he had won the trophy and this all came out.
ReplyDeleteI frequently tell my children that the only thing they can break and never fix is trust. This story is a perfect example. No one knows where the lies start and the truth begins.
ReplyDeleteKatie Couric don't mean a damn thing. During the combines, there will be 32 interview sessions between him and the NFL teams. He will be pushed and tested by people not trying to be polite to maintain an image. Then the teams will compare notes from the interviews. If he drops below say the 15th pick in the first round, then you know what teams think of him and his level of participation in the hoax.
ReplyDeleteYou pop a possession of CDS or swipe a laptop, it can be written off as "youthful indiscretion". You out and out lie like that, then your character and stability come into question, and teams will be reluctant to invest millions of guaranteed dollars in to you.
Amber, because his audience was Katie Couric. Intrepid journalist who "interviewed" Jada Smith and praised her efforts against human trafficking while Homeland Security is investigating Co$ for human trafficking..
ReplyDelete@Vicki Best line on this thread! Haha
ReplyDeleteHe's either in on it completely, or he's the dumbest man on Earth.
ReplyDeleteHe just needs to STFU and focus on combines. People have a short attention span, and he's dragging it out on purpose to keep the pot light on himself.
ReplyDeleteNot care about this? Wha wha whaa?
ReplyDeleteIn a celebriverse full of endless iterations of "dbag actor cheats on dbag actress with another dbag actress" and "dbag Lohan does something dbaggish" this is a frickin gossip manna from heaven.
What did Te'o know and when did he know it? Did he ever talk to a women on the phone, or did he completely lie about that? If he wasn't lying, who was he talking to? If he was lying, was his father (who made statements about them meeting) also in on it? Who pretended to be Lennay's sister on Twitter? Lennay had to fake her death to get away from drug dealers?!?!?! Was this a ruse to cover up the fact that a Samoan, Morman, football player at a Catholic school was gay? Or was it a bid for the Heismann? How much did Notre Dame know? Will it actually affect his draft chances? Should it? Who were the two people joking about the hoax on Twitter, well before the hoax became known to anyone? Why would it "never occur" to someone to attend their girlfriend's funeral, or visit her in the hospital? Why didn't that raise flags to anyone....
OMG, the questions just don't end. Pure gossip gold. As a dedicated student of gossip who is lapping this up, y'all must just be auditing to not care about this. I mean NONE of the celebrities we gossip about are important, and they aren't even creative in their shenanigans. At least this is interesting.
Agree 100%!!
DeleteI've watched enough cop shows to know this: The first question you ask is, "Who benefits?"
ReplyDeleteSo, who is it that benefited from the story that Manti Te'o had a girlfriend who tragically died, and that he used his pain and grief to fuel his dedication to his sport, leading to months of headlines about his courage?
I'm going to need to see a lot of evidence to convince me that this wasn't Te'o's doing.
OK. I read a few really long stories about this, and I just don't get it at all.
ReplyDeleteWhy do some of you think the football player was scammed?
From what I gather, he was in on the lie from the very beginning. Saying that Manti Te'o fell for a hoax is just not believable to me in any way, shape or form. You are all reasonable people, so those of you who believe he was hoaxed, please explain. Because I just don't get it. I also can not believe for the life of me how this story has swept the airwaves. Between this, the ESPN commentary on the quarterback's hot girlfriend and Beyonce lipsynching, I feel like our news outlets are just duping us with these bullshit stories to not cover REAL issues. (My conspiracy theory for the month.)
People: he made up a fake girlfriend to cover for the fact that he is gay and dating another man. Being gay is kind of a no-no in the NFL. He took it too far by claiming she was sick & dying. He had so many holes in his story that Deadspin started to wonder about him which is when they dug up the real story. Now he's lying (again) to save face.
ReplyDeleteI just don't get why, when someone is caught lying, then all of a sudden everybody believes anything this person says. Oh, so *now* he's telling the truth. Uh huh.
Everyone's a big fat liar today!
ReplyDeleteLiar Liar Pants on Fire. I'm still wearing my floor laughing bum protecting pantaloons!
I still say he's gay and it was a coverup to keep from being outed. The NFL is notoriously homophobic and being gay would make a career there EXTREMELY difficult. I've talked to a few gay friends about this and they were the first to say they thought he was gay. I feel sorry for the guy if that's true. I would think it would be very difficult to live a life of lies.
ReplyDeleteLet's just say Manti is gay. There are much easier ways to cover it up. Coming up with a pretend GF and keeping up the charade for 3 years? That's dedication. Faking a GF online? I could see it. But for that long, when teammates are already questioning if you actually have said GF? (though they didn't fully realize she was fake.) I don't know. But I don't get that.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about believing everything he says, it's about trying to look at the whole story reasonably. I think he lied, but not in the beginning. I think he may suffer from emotional issues. As for being gay, not sure.
Agree with enty. Spin your tales. Who gives a shite?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Robert, JSierra and Livia and a bunch of others - he was in on it, and this story is gossip gold. He lied too much about the details of this relationship to not have known. It is strongly looking like it was a male family friend who was posing as Lennay the whole time...so either that 'friend' is a total asshole, or the two were in on it together to a) hide the fact he's gay, or b) create a sob story for the media in pursuit of the Heisman trophy.
ReplyDeleteNotre Dame is OBVIOUSLY going to say he was hoaxed because HE PLAYS for them and they are all looking like fools right now. I want updates on this story all the live long day.
PS chop chop - hey long time! Agree they took it to far by having her "die", but I think they kind of had to have that happen because the story was spinning out of control and they'd have to produce her at some point.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the gay cover-up is my current favorite theory - not necessarily even the one I think is most probable, mind you, just my favorite.
ReplyDeleteIt's not too much of a stretch to believe the relationship was real, it just wasn't with a woman named Lennay, it was with a guy named Roniah. And, as RocketQueen said, they had to "kill the girlfriend" when things spiraled out of control.
I don't think it was for Heisman publicity - it seems like too long of a con for that.
Oh, another question I forgot to add in the earlier post that just makes this whole thing juicier: why did a current NFL player claim to have met Lennay? The plot thickens.....
He did it to establish a hetero byline for future marketing purposes. He did it ...poorly.
ReplyDelete@LaynaDay...
ReplyDelete"Any story is a mix of importance + intrigue." (This story is a 0 in importance, but a 9.5 in interest.)
Your story equation is smart, simple, profound. I will be quoting You. Thanks for the thought-provoking.
Aside from all of this, imagine how he is going to be treated as a rookie for all of this by the team that drafts him. Remember that awful haircut that Tebow had to get??
ReplyDeleteOf course he lied! C'MON! ((Gob Bluth voice))
ReplyDeleteIt's not that I believe people aren't duped on the internet, I just don't believe it b/c of the situation he's in. I can see where it made for a very good human interest story w/ the girlfriend and grandmother dying for the Heisman campaign! Or he's gay. Whatever.
Hope no one is offended but in the video with Katie he looks a little Down Syndrome.
ReplyDeleteWhy did he even bother making up this crap? And he's a horrid liar too. He seems slow to me.
*waves at RocketQueen* Hey girl! How's my Rocket Princess? We missed you around here. Glad you're back.
ReplyDeletehe's gay, end of story
ReplyDeleteLance Armstrong & Manti Te'O, table for 2...
ReplyDeletechopchop - *waves back* - all good...work is still dreadful so I'm glad to be back HERE, too :) Rocketprincess thriving, thank you!
ReplyDeleteUmmmm.... hello? What college football player, a NATIONALLY KNOWN star - 'dates' a girl he has never seen in real life? Forget that she isn't putting out, he has never even met her!
ReplyDeleteShe wasn't his girlfriend, not even in his mind. Did he think maybe he was talking to some adoring fan girl on-line? Maybe. But no way to I believe he ever thought of this girl as his girlfriend. She was a story to tell to get him attention. She was never a girlfriend that he was devastated to hear was dying.
So that is him lying all the way through if you ask me. Which makes me believe she didn't exist ever at all.
Holy crap - a young man lied to make himself look better??
ReplyDeleteBREAKING NEWS!
Honestly, who cares?
I think one reason that the story has got the public's attention is because 99.5 % of the time we read about athletes playing women - cheating on their wives, dumping one woman for another, having celebrity girlfriends, and the public tends to sympathize with the women.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, we have a big handsome football player who is supposedly fooled by a fictional girlfriend, and the tables are turned for once.
The more he talks, the dumber he seems. Sure it might have been a hoax at first, but he kept lying about her and milking the story. As a previous poster mentioned, he didn't even talk that much about his actually dead grandmother!
ReplyDelete