Untold: How a catfishing scandal derailed Manti Te’o’s promising NFL career

Manti Te’o, a 31-year-old American football linebacker of Samoan-Hawaiian descent, is currently a free agent. He was last in the books of NFL team Chicago Bears as part of their practice squad, playing just one game for the team, a playoff loss to New Orleans Saints, and has been in the NFL doldrums ever since. Instead, he became the subject of a recently released 2 part Netflix documentary titled Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist, which explores the catfishing scandal that rocked and altered the course of his life.

This, of course, is a situation that few would have predicted about a decade ago when Manti Te’o was considered one of the top prospects in the country, both during his high school, as well as his college days. It was this catfishing scandal in 2012 that proved to be the undoing of this once brilliant prospect. Let’s look briefly at how this one incident turned Te’o’s life on its head. 

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Te’o was born on January 26, 1991 in Laie, Hawaii, and did his schooling at Punahou High School in Honolulu. He enjoyed a flourishing football career at high school, earning various accolades like the 2008 Sporting News High School Athlete of the Year, and US Today All American. He was considered one of the top recruits both at the state as well as national level- receiving offers from almost 50 college programs across the country as a 5-star recruit. 

Te’o eventually chose to ply his trade at the University of Notre Dame and his star continued to be in the ascendancy as he went from strength to strength during his time at Notre Dame between 2009-2012. 

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His girlfriend, Stanford University student Lennay Kekua, had been a source of strength for him. Te’o had met Kekua on social media platform Twitter, which had just begun to gain widespread popularity, and was drawn to her immediately. The two got really close with time, even though Kekua avoided any plans to meet in person. On September 11, 2012, Te’o made a heartbreaking announcement that his girlfriend had passed away, coinciding with the death of his grandmother as well, and this personal tragedy was covered by various media outlets. She had suffered an accident and while receiving treatment, she had been found to be suffering from Leukaemia. Te’o who had promised his girlfriend that he would play on even if something happened to her, went on to play all the games for Notre Dame that year putting in some strong performances and that along with the circumstances surrounding his personal life put him in the hunt for some top awards and accolades that year. 

The situation started unravelling a few months later though, when sports blog Deadspin published an article, after an anonymous tip-off, alleging that Lennay Kekua did not exist and that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo (a biological male, who now identifies as a female and goes by the name of Naya Tuiasosopo) had in fact been carrying out an elaborate hoax on Manti Te’o. In February 2013, Tuiasosopo admitted to catfishing Te’o and recreating a female voice behind a privacy screen to lead on the gullible Te’o into an ill-fated relationship, despite claiming she had Te’o’s best interests at heart. What had initially united the sporting world in support of a player who was putting in top performances on the back of a tragic personal loss ended up becoming one of the most talked about sporting scandals of the time.

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The scandal had a disastrous impact on Te’o’s football career; he did play in the NFL, signing for the San Diego Chargers in the 2nd round of the 2013 NFL Draft before moving to the New Orleans Saints in 2017. However, his career did not hit the heights that his initial years, both at high school and University, had promised. And while injuries played their part through the years as well, the psychological impact of dealing with the scandal clearly proved too heavy a burden for Te’o to carry. The once surefooted, quick and physical defensive juggernaut was replaced by an anxious and unsure presence who was fighting to reprogram himself and struggling to emerge out of the shadow of his past.

He ended up becoming a free agent in 2018 for a year after his contract with the Saints had expired, and after being signed to the Chicago Bears’ practice squad in October 2020, he once again became a free agent in January 2021. 

Manti Te’o’s story, and in particular, the scandal that derailed his promising career has become the subject of a new two-part Netflix documentary titled Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist which was released on August 16,  2022. It explores how the footballer’s clandestine relationship threatened his career and legacy.