The alleged Manti Te'o dead-girlfriend hoax: Is it the media's fault?

Deadspin drops a bombshell with a story saying the Notre Dame football star's lost love never existed

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o
(Image credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's heartbreaking tale of loss was one of the biggest human interest stories of the 2012 college football season. Te'o's girlfriend, identified as Lennay Kekua, was in a car accident, then found out she had leukemia, and died in September —within hours of the death of Te'o's grandmother. Te'o, who placed second in voting for the Heisman Trophy and was the emotional leader of a Notre Dame team that made it to the national championship game, had his heartwrenching story reported over and over again by a wide variety of mainstream media outlets.

The trouble is, the whole thing was a hoax, Deadspin reported Wednesday. Te'o's girlfriend never existed. Te'o released a statement saying that he had been duped into what he thought was an "authentic" emotional relationship with a woman he met online and talked to long-distance over the phone, but it was "apparently someone's sick joke." What's the media's excuse?

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.