Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who masterminded the hoax behind Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, is being sued in Los Angeles Superior Court by a friend who claims he suffered brain damage after a March 2012 auto accident while riding in a car driven by Tuiasosopo.
Just when we thought things on the Manti Te'o/Lennay Kekua front were over, they got weird again. Earlier this month, an unknown individual assumed control of Manti Te'o's deleted Twitter account, recreated its appearance, and started tweeting. The tweets weren't original, though; they were recycled from Te'o's own…
When the first part of Dr. Phil's exclusive interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo concluded yesterday, we were left with a cliffhanger: would Ronaiah finally give in to the good Doctor's demands and perform the voice of Lennay Kekua? Today we got the answer: sort of. [Update, March 3, 2014: The video has been removed.]
Ronaiah Tuiasosopo—the man behind Lennay Kekua, Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend—today told Dr. Phil new details about the "romantic" relationship he had with Te'o. Put however much stock you like in these details: Tuiasosopo is an avowed liar and hoaxer.
Part one of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's silence-breaking sit-down with Dr. Phil airs all over the nation today. (Check your local listings for the precise time.) The Associated Press got its hooks into an early broadcast—our Tim Burke has marshaled one, too, and he'll be posting highlights shortly—and quoted this gem from…
On Thursday, the first half of Dr. Phil's exclusive interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo will air in its entirety. Today, Dr. Phil McGraw went on the Today Show to talk about the interview and share some of the things that Ronaiah told him about the hoax he carried out against Manti Te'o. Here's what McGraw told Today's…
Two recent developments have been hard to reconcile with each other. First, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's claim to the Daily News that, in leading on Manti Te'o, it was him on the phone the entire time, impersonating a female voice. Second, the release of three voicemails from "Lennay Kekua" to Te'o—they really do sound like…
Katie Couric taped her big interview with Manti Te'o Tuesday afternoon. It airs today throughout America. Although the Couric/Te'o publicity team has released a handful of advance snippets—Te'o's admission that he lied to the press, voicemails allegedly from Kekua—most of what Te'o and his family will say remains…
In advance of this afternoon's interview, Katie Couric's show has released recordings of three voicemails provided by Manti Te'o. The messages were left on Te'o's phone by who he believed was Lennay Kekua. As the Daily News reported this morning, hoaxer Ronaiah Tuiasosopo claims he disguised his voice over the phone,…
According to his lawyer, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man behind the Manti Te'o dead-girlfriend hoax, was the person who posed as "Lennay Kekua" during phone calls with the Notre Dame linebacker. Skeptical? Well, don't worry. Tuiasosopo's attorney, Milton Grimes, has a pretty airtight explanation for how his client was…
Jeremy Schaap has obtained from "a source" (Te'o?) what are purported to be Manti Te'o's phone records, covering the four months from May 11 through Sept. 12, when Lennay Kekua "died."
A quick primer to help you navigate this document. These are selected tweets from October 2011 to December 2012 for both Lennay Kekua, Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, and Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man behind Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend. We also included tweets from other users to Lennay.
In Manti Te'o's telling, the Notre Dame linebacker fell in love with Lennay Kekua over the internet. He met her through social media. And the man behind her social media profiles—with social media profiles of his own—was none other than Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.
Welcome to a special edition of Dead Letters, featuring every angry email that was sent to us in the days since publishing our Manti Te'o story. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters.
Peter Navy Tuiasosopo, Ronaiah's uncle, spoke to reporters outside Oasis Christian Church, where his brother (Ronaiah's father) is pastor, and told reporters there will be a family meeting later this week to discuss how Ronaiah should address his role in the Lennay Kukua hoax.
Today's South Bend Tribune has the first full account of Notre Dame's investigation of the Lennay Kekua hoax, and it's startling how little investigation actually went on. According to the university, Te'o informed officials of his dead/undead girlfriend on Dec. 26, and Notre Dame proceeded from there. The university…
Among the (many) confusing things about the ongoing saga of Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, the similarities between the real life of Te'o-deceiver Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and the false narrative he created have especially muddled the facts. Two turning points in the faked narrative: "Lennay Kekua" was involved in a…
Admitting that he deceived his parents and the press about the nature of his relationship with Lennay Kekua, but denying any involvement in the hoax, Manti Te'o spoke with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap Friday night for more than two hours in an off-camera interview. (Most of what little we know about the interview with Te'o…
This photo, provided to us by a friend of the Tuiasosopos, was taken on Nov. 23, 2012—the night before the Notre Dame-USC game. It shows Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's younger sister, known as Pookah, with Manti Te'o. (According to Manti's uncle Alema Te'o, Pookah supposedly posed as Lennay Kekua's cousin.)
ESPN's Shelley Smith is reporting that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the apparent creator of the Lennay Kekua hoax, confessed to duping Manti Te'o, according to an interview with a friend of Tuiasosopo. "He told me Manti was not involved at all, he was the victim," the woman told Smith, in an audio recording broadcast on ESPN.
