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In ESPN Interview, Manti Te'o Admits To "Tailoring His Stories," Says He Wasn't Convinced Lennay Kekua Was Fake Until Wednesday [UPDATE]

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 int...

Newspaper: "Lennay" Called Manti Te'o In December And Said She'd Faked Her Death To Elude Drug Dealers

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, citing a source "close to the Te'o family," has the particulars of a phone conversation between Manti Te'o and "Lennay Kekua" in December, three months after "Lennay" had supposedly died. ...

Here's A Photo Of Manti Te'o With Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's Sister The Night Before The Notre Dame-USC Game

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.)...

What Did Manti Te'o Say About His Dead Girlfriend After He'd Learned She Wasn't Real?

Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said that Manti Te'o was at ESPN's college football awards show, on Dec. 6, when he received a phone call alerting him to the hoax. That was the moment, according to the Notre Dame timeline, that Te'o learned Lennay Kekua wasn't dead, and wasn't real. Here are quotes fro...

ESPN Reports Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Confessed To Te'o Hoax In December. Was Te'o Involved? Evidence Varies

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 ...

"I Know A Liar When I'm Around One.": Manti Te'o's Uncle Comments On Ronaiah Tuiasosopo

Manti Te'o's uncle Alema Te'o went on The Zone Sports Network last night and spoke to radio hosts Scott Garrard and Riley Jensen about the Manti Te'o-Lennay Kekua story that we broke on Wednesday. Alema didn't have much to say about Manti, but he did offer some personal insight into the character o...

Jerry Sandusky can't use his homeowners' insurance to pay for any civil claims against him....

This <em>Inside The NBA</em> Graphic Is To Scale Of Quality Vis-A-Vis Its ESPN Competitor

It's no secret TNT's Inside The NBA trumps its ESPN counterpart in every manner of entertainment, humor, or likelihood of aired profanities. It's tough to really call the ESPN NBA program a "competitor," because ESPN's games air on Wednesdays and Fridays while TNT owns Thursday. The ratings, though...

<em>Us Weekly</em>: Te'o Hoaxer Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Auditioned For <em>The Voice</em> And Had A "Sob Story" About A Car Accident

And finally we've learned a little bit more about Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man we believe to have posed as Manti Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. What we do know about Tuiasosopo so far? He sings. He's religious. He, like Lennay, supposedly got into a car accident. And we know that he knows Te'o....

Brian De Palma Will Direct That Forthcoming Joe Paterno Movie Starring Al Pacino

We learned back in September that Joe Posnanski's book Paterno would be hitting the big screen, and that Al Pacino had been lined up to play the late Penn State coach. We hadn't heard anything since then, so we hadn't thought anything of it, at least not until we saw this Deadline report:...

Everything You Need To Know About Manti Te'o's Fake Dead Girlfriend

The saddest and most inspirational story of the college football season was a lie. Read the story » | How Sports Illustrated got it wrong » | What everyone got wrong » | Notre Dame responds » | Teammates had doubts » | Was an announcement planned? » | The hoaxer's audition »...

Report: Some At Notre Dame Wanted To Announce The Manti Te'o Hoax Last Week

Yahoo's Pat Forde is openly carrying water for the "Manti Te'o is a hapless victim" lobby at this point, but there's something fascinating at the top of his latest report: an assertion that the Notre Dame hoped to go public with the hoax last week, but that Te'o and his agent wanted to hold off....

What Manti Te'o Told <em>Sports Illustrated</em> About Lennay Kekua

SI's Pete Thamel has been making the rounds today, explaining how he came to write the cover story that had the single biggest role in mythologizing the fake narrative of Manti Te'o's girlfriend. Now we've got more details. At SI.com, Thamel has addressed the steps he took to confirm Lennay Kekua's ...

How <em>Sports Illustrated</em>'s Manti Te'o Story Got Published

While reporting his cover feature for Sports Illustrated on Manti Te'o, Pete Thamel found what he called some "small red flags" in the story of Lennay Kekua, the dead girlfriend who never existed. So what did he do?...

The 10 Films I’m Most Excited To See At The Sundance Film Festival

Every year, the Sundance Film Festival shows about 200 features, documentaries and shorts. Last year, the festival was the launching pad for Oscar-nominated films Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Sessions, and Searching for Sugar Man, not to mention that it premiered modest indie hits like Sleepwalk...

What Happened To Manti Te'o's Interview With ESPN?

At his teary press conference last night, when pressed on details that didn't add up, Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick promised to let Manti Te'o tell those parts himself. Te'o, Swarbrick said, would be addressing the media "soon."...

Darnell Dockett Wants To Cheer Up Manti Te'o By Taking Him To The Strip Club

This Manti Te'o business is on everyone's mind, including Darnell Dockett's. The Arizona Cardinals defensive end is sympathetic to Manti's situation, and has some interesting ideas on how to cheer Manti up:...

Here's Everything The Media Screwed Up In Reporting The Story Of Manti Te'o's Fake Dead Girlfriend

In our investigation of Manti Te'o and his nonexistent dead girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, published yesterday, we mentioned the media's role this fall in amplifying the hoax. Here are all the ways they got the story wrong:...

Manti Te'o's Teammates Had Their Doubts About Lennay Kekua

The big question is: What did he know and when did he know it? We may never get a straight answer from Te'o. Nor from his family, who have thrown hissy-fits anytime the media doesn't work as Manti's PR agency. But what about those who spent the most time with Te'o over the last few years. According ...

Cardinals Player Says He Met Manti Te'o's Fake Dead Girlfriend

This is a confusing story; there's no doubt about it. But if there's one thing everyone can agree on—from our original story, to the Notre Dame statement, to Manti Te'o's own statement, it's that Lennay Kekua was a hoax. She didn't exist....