Manti Te'o's girlfriend Lennay Kekua

Manti Te'o's girlfriend Lennay Kekua
	FALSE
	"Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o played through grief in 2012 after his girlfriend, Stanford student Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia shortly after a car accident."
Domain	Sports & Competition
Tactic	Imposture; Fabrication;
Era	Historical
First seen	2012
Origin	An online persona created by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, whose story was repeated by Te'o and amplified by national sports media during the 2012 college football season
Last reviewed	2026-10-27
	Further reading: books on Sports & Competition

The story of Manti Te'o's girlfriend Lennay Kekua was one of the most moving narratives of the 2012 college football season. Te'o, a star linebacker at the University of Notre Dame, said his grandmother and his girlfriend had died within hours of each other in September 2012, and he played on to lead his team to an undefeated regular season. He finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy. In January 2013, the sports website Deadspin reported that Lennay Kekua did not exist. She was an online persona created by an acquaintance, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who later admitted to the hoax. Te'o said he had been the victim of a deception, and had never met Kekua in person. The case became one of the best-known examples of "catfishing."

The claim

Major outlets, including Sports Illustrated and ESPN, reported on Te'o's relationship with Kekua and her death, describing how she had been in a car accident and then diagnosed with leukemia. Some reports described the couple as having met in person, details that were not accurate.

What the evidence shows

Deadspin investigation. On January 16, 2013, Deadspin reporters Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey reported that there was no record of Kekua's birth, death, enrollment at Stanford or car accident, and that photos used for her profiles belonged to another woman who had not consented.
Notre Dame's response. Notre Dame said that Te'o had told coaches in December 2012 that he had received a phone call from someone claiming to be Kekua, and that the university had hired investigators who concluded he was the victim of a hoax.
Admission. Tuiasosopo admitted in a television interview that he had created the persona and voiced her in phone calls.
Te'o's account. Te'o acknowledged that he had allowed people to believe he had met Kekua in person and that he had continued to refer to her death publicly for a time after receiving the December call because he was confused and embarrassed. His story was revisited in the 2022 Netflix documentary Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist.

Why it persists

The story combined tragedy, faith, romance and athletic achievement, and media outlets repeated it without verifying basic facts. Online relationships with people never met in person were less widely understood in 2012.

Lessons for readers

Moving human-interest stories still require verification.
Basic checks, such as records of a death or enrollment, can reveal hoaxes.
Online personas can be entirely fabricated, often using stolen photos.
The media can amplify a falsehood by repeating each other's reporting.
Victims of deception may compound problems by not correcting the record quickly.

Sources

Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey, "Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax," Deadspin, January 16, 2013.
University of Notre Dame, statement by athletic director Jack Swarbrick, January 16, 2013.
Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, directed by Ryan Duffy and Tony Vainuku (Netflix, 2022).