A Complete Timeline of the Manti Te’o Catfish Controversy: From First Meeting to Public Scandal

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A Complete Timeline of the Manti Te'o Catfish Controversy: From First Meeting to Public Scandal

A new side to the story. In the fall of 2012, Manti Te'o was one of the most famous and talented college football players in the country, but by the winter, he was the target of cruel jokes. Te'o, who played for Notre Dame at the time, revealed after a September 2012 game against Michigan State that he had lost both his grandmother and his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, on the same day. He dedicated his season to their memory, even skipping Kekua's funeral because she insisted that he didn't miss a single game of his senior season. "[She] made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he told the Los Angeles Times in December 2012. "All she wanted was some white roses. So I sent her roses and sent her two picks along with that." Though his story of persevering through heartbreak and grief earned Te'o national attention, the story got even bigger in January 2013, when Deadspin reported that Kekua was not a real person. "Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper," the outlet stated at the time. "There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed." In their article, Deadspin claimed that the fake Facebook account was created by Naya Tuiasosopo. The Washington native later confirmed that she initially invented Kekua as a way to process her struggles with her gender and sexual identity. She has since come out as transgender. Shortly after the story broke, Notre Dame issued a statement confirming that the linebacker had been "the victim of what appears to be a hoax," and clarified that Te'o had only recently discovered that he had been catfished. "On December 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te'o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," spokesperson Dennis Brown said at the time. "The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax." Te'o soon became the subject of mean-spirited jokes and memes, many of which criticized him for believing that the supposed Stanford student was a real person even though he never met her. As a result of the scandal, the former football star was chosen in the second round of the NFL draft and struggled to find his footing playing professional football. Te'o and Tuiasosopo shared the whole story with the world in the Netflix documentary Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, which premiered on Netflix in August 2022. "When I was first approached about this project back in 2020, I told the filmmakers Ryan Duffy and Tony Vainuku that I didn’t want this to be my story. I wanted this to be the story," Te'o told USA Today in August 2022. "That required everyone involved in what happened to be in the documentary and I think that’s what’s so powerful about it. You have every side. It creates a level of truth that can’t be dismissed or doubted." Keep scrolling to relive the complete timeline of Teo's catfish controversy:

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2009

After being courted by multiple colleges following an impressive high school football career, Te'o committed to play for Notre Dame in the spring of 2009. Despite beginning to make a name for himself on the field, the Mormon-raised athlete struggled to adjust to life in South Bend, Indiana at the Catholic university.

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2009

In the Netflix documentary, Tuiasosopo explained that she created the Lennay Kekua Facebook account as a result of struggling with her sexuality and gender identity. "I knew what was right and wrong, but I was too far in love with being looked at in this way," she explained in the Netflix documentary. "Yes, it was completely selfish, but it was what made me happy. It was what I wanted to be a reality."

In 2009, she and Te'o became Facebook friends shortly after getting to know the Hawaii native's cousin, Shiloah Te'o. "He just asked me [if I knew her]. And I said, 'Yeah, I've talked to her before,'" Shiloah recounted in the documentary. "My relationship with her was just like, random calls [and] texts." Manti and Kekua's relationship unfolded in much the same way until his junior year of college.

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2011

After learning that Kekua's father was sick, Manti reached out to his online friend to offer support. As the pair began talking more seriously and more frequently, they began an online, long-distance relationship. "I felt like I was helping her and that made me feel good as a person. I really fed off of that," he recalled. "We would talk often. ... Through those conversations, I started to get to know who Lennay is and what she stands for, what her values are, and I'm like, 'I like that.'"

Tuiasosopo added, "All of the conversations we did have, those were conversations you'd have with someone you see longevity with." Despite their strong relationship, Kekua was never available to meet Manti in person or even FaceTime with him. "I couldn't buy more time, but I also couldn't end it [with him]," she explained.

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Late 2011

Though he was eligible for the NFL draft, Manti decided to stay at Notre Dame for his senior year and continue playing college football. In Untold, he revealed that his relationship with Kekua was one of the factors that helped him make the decision. "I remember telling him, 'You have to see the bigger vision. You have to focus, you have to get your mind right. ... You have to start holding yourself to this standard and be prepared," Tuiasosopo recalled.

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2012

In spring 2012, Manti learned from Tuiasosopo (who was posing as Kekua's brother) that his girlfriend had been in a car accident and was in critical condition. Kekua was supposedly placed on life support and while in the hospital, she was diagnosed with leukemia. At the time, Manti would call her every night, sometimes staying on the phone for up to eight hours at a time, in order to support her through her hospitalization.

The ordeal raised a few red flags for several people in the linebacker's inner circle. "For me, I just felt like this person was the most unlucky human of all time," Manti's best friend and teammate, Robby Toma, recalled in Untold. "I was real skeptical about her. I looked up the ... accident and I saw no record."

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September 2012

Manti got a phone call from his family around 6 a.m. on September 12, 2012, telling him that his grandmother had died at the age of 72. That afternoon, he learned that Kekua had also died after her battle with leukemia. "I just broke," he recalled of that day. "I walked out of the locker room, and I remember everything kind of came crashing down at that time."

After hearing from Kekua's "sister" that she had written him letters for each one of his games, Manti decided to give the season his all in her honor. He opened about the tragedy after Notre Dame's victory against Michigan State, explaining that he wanted to dedicate the season to his loved ones. "They were with me. I couldn't do it without them, I couldn't do it without the support of my family and the support of my girlfriend's family. But I miss them. And I know I'll see them again someday," he said at the time.

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Late 2012

After Kekua's "death," Manti stayed in contact with her family — without knowing that they were all invented by Tuiasosopo to make Kekua seem more real. "There was this part of me that just couldn't let go," she explained in the documentary. Manti and Tuiasosopo even met face-to-face in Los Angeles, after Notre Dame's final game of the college season against USC. At the time, he believed that Tuiasosopo was Kekua's cousin. 

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December 2012

The football star was talking to Kekua's "sister" on the phone when she revealed that the student wasn't dead, sending him into an emotional tailspin. Manti told his football coach and his family about the shocking revelation, although he decided against sharing it with the world until he knew how he wanted to handle things. He continued to tell Kekua's story during this time, which led many to suspect that he was involved with the hoax when the news broke the following month.

"My uncle immediately said, ‘I think you’re getting catfished,'" Manti recalled in the documentary. “And that was the first time that somebody ever brought up the term ‘catfish.’ I didn’t know what catfishing was. Even when he explained what it was, I still couldn’t understand what that even entailed.”

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January 2013

Deadspin reporters Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey published a story titled, "Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking and Inspirational Story of the College Football Season, Is a Hoax." The article claims that Kekua never existed and reveals that her pictures were stolen from a classmate of Tuiasosopo, who was named as the main suspect behind the hoax.

Immediately after the news broke, Notre Dame released a statement confirming that Manti had been "the victim of a hoax," and promising to investigate the situation.

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January 2013

Manti broke his silence later that month, telling ESPN that he wasn't involved in the ruse. "I wasn't faking it. I wasn't part of this," he told the outlet in January 2013. He did, however, confess to lying about having met Lennay during their relationship, explaining that he was embarrassed about their online-only romance.

"I knew that — I even knew, that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn't meet, and that alone — people find out that this girl who died, I was so invested in, I didn't meet her, as well," Manti said. "So I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away, so that people wouldn't think that I was some crazy dude."

He also defended his decision not to share the truth about Kekua with the world immediately after the December 2012 phone call. "I didn't know, myself. I didn't know what to believe," Te'o said. "All I knew for sure in my head was that she died on September 12."

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February 2013

Tuiasosopo confessed to creating Kekua and pretending to be her and members of her family during the course of her relationship with Manti. "I pretty much had this escape of Lennay and this was where my heart had pretty much invested, not just time, but all of my energy went into this," she explained during an appearance on the Dr. Phil Show in early 2013. "As twisted and confusing as it may be, yeah, I cared for [Manti]. I did all that I could to help this person become a better person, even though I wasn't getting nothing out of it."

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Spring 2013

After the hoax made headlines, Manti was mocked online as people began making fun of him for falling for Kekua and her story. Despite originally being projected as a first round draft pick, Manti was drafted to the San Diego Chargers in the second round, with many sports analysts noting at the time that the controversy likely had an impact on teams' reluctance to choose him.

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August 2022

Nearly 10 years after Kekua's "death," Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist premiered on Netflix. "As I sit here and think about the journey that it has been to come to this point, I am extremely humbled. I want to publicly thank everyone who has been a part of my journey because you all have played a vital role into me getting to where I am today," Manti wrote via Instagram in August 2022. "To all the people that have supported me and have stood up for me, this one is for you. Thank you for your unwavering love and support. You have no idea what that has meant to me the past 10 years. ... Thank you for the good people throughout the years that have reached out to show love and support when it was not the most popular thing to do."