9:26 pm - 01/16/2013
An anonymous Notre Dame teammate of Te’o spoke to Jackie Peppers of Pepperonsports.com who has formerly worked for ESPN, Fox Sports, The NFL Network is currently freelancing for Yahoo Sports.
The teammate shed some light on what was really going on between Te’o and his Fake Dead Cancer Girlfriend.
Here is what he had to say:
The Notre Dame football player, who asked for anonymity, told Pepper On Sports, “No we all knew he had only seen her once. But when the media was saying how he went through both deaths we knew,” said the source, referring to the back-to-back deaths of Te’o’s grandmother and girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who allegedly died of Leukemia.
In defense of the Heisman Trophy candidate, the source said he believes the lie may have indeed started with somebody duping Te’o using a phony twitter account, and eventually, faking their own death.
IMO, i think he was in on it and the only people who got catfished was the national media not te'o
FOOTBALL CATFISH SAGA CONTINUES. NOTRE DAME TEAMMATE: MANTI TE'O IS "A LIAR AND VERY GOOD ACTOR"
An anonymous Notre Dame teammate of Te’o spoke to Jackie Peppers of Pepperonsports.com who has formerly worked for ESPN, Fox Sports, The NFL Network is currently freelancing for Yahoo Sports.
The teammate shed some light on what was really going on between Te’o and his Fake Dead Cancer Girlfriend.
Here is what he had to say:
The Notre Dame football player, who asked for anonymity, told Pepper On Sports, “No we all knew he had only seen her once. But when the media was saying how he went through both deaths we knew,” said the source, referring to the back-to-back deaths of Te’o’s grandmother and girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who allegedly died of Leukemia.
In defense of the Heisman Trophy candidate, the source said he believes the lie may have indeed started with somebody duping Te’o using a phony twitter account, and eventually, faking their own death.
Early in my conversation with the source, the Notre Dame player said, “He lied, but the media blew it up.” In response to my follow-up question asking if the source thought that Te’o kept the story going because of the media attention, the player replied, “Yeah. Right after the Michigan [State] game. He should have never brought her in the media. His grandma passing was enough.”
“We would never bring it up. But we would look at him when he would get all emotional during media about his girl,” the player said.
When asked if he thought Te’o was a good actor, the player replied, “Very good.”
This sounds accurate to me, but instead of manning up, Te’o will play the victim. The reality is it was his attention whoring that got him into the situation he is in now.
Here is the best case scenario theory for Te’o and there are a lot of wild rumors going. It is possible originally he was Catfished, but once the media picked up the story, he didn’t dare admit that the person he was talking to wasn’t real. His Ego got in the way and had him doing interviews like the one he did with Jim Rome where he plays up the relationship like it was a magical love between two people who met on a football field.
Just like with most lies they started to stack on top of each other and got bigger and bigger to the point Te’o was simply in too deep. Once he realized he had been duped and it was possible he could get exposed he confessed to Notre Dame claiming he was the victim.
IMO, i think he was in on it and the only people who got catfished was the national media not te'o
Now it's all coming out I guess. Idk I don't really know whats going on.
Also I swear those are the two most common fake internet deaths.
the "i was a victim of an internet hoax" story is problematic because he stated multiple times how he met her, his dad met her, they vacationed in Hawaii together. now Notre Dame is trying to play it up as "met her ONLINE". i don't buy it, especially after Notre Dame covered up that rape/suicide case recently.
It turns out Te'o and this dude are good friends irl, and whether he knew it or not, his friend was at least running some of the catfish show.
I feel like I didn't hear about this at all. I didnt even know what this was til today.
the craziest thing to me is that he is a very famous college player and he falls in love with this girl and they never facetime?? skype? exchange more than 1 picture?
and then he goes on tv interviews, at every Notre Dame game, pointing towards the sky, crying about her. making a HUGE deal of her. if you "met" someone online and were in the public eye like he was, maybe you would not bring so much attention to it??
idk my mind is blown
Not to mention, there are multiple reports of when she ACTUALLY died. like did she die before you grandma, after her, 3 days later, 4 days later? Like how do you not know the exact day that 2 MAJOR life events happened?!