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Te'o Gives Interview to ESPN; Deadspin Still Skeptical

By 11W Staff - 19 January 2013
16 Comments
- Football

As for why Te'o never visited his dying girlfriend in the hospital, he told Schaap, "It never really crossed my mind." (deadspin.com)

Source deadspin.com/5977282/in-espn-interview-manti-teo-admits-to-tailoring-h...

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Comments

jedkat on 19 Jan 2013 - 11:30am #

Did I read that right? Even after the Notre Dame investigation, and finding out on Dec 6th that she was fake, Manti still claimed he thought she was possibly real all the way up until Wednesday when Notre Dame had a PC explaining they found out she was fake on the 26th? whaaa?

“The teams that don’t respect their coaches and don’t trust their coaches are the teams that go .500"
~Zach Boren

Normal Buck on 19 Jan 2013 - 11:50am #

That couldn't be correct - wasn't ND claiming that Manti was going to go public with this next Monday, but Deadspin didn't beat him to the punch? Wait, that could be correct because the whole lot of them have done nothing but contradict themselves and each other since this story broke.

Enzo on 19 Jan 2013 - 11:50am #

Manti Te'o must be Hawaiian for pathological liar.

d1145fresh on 19 Jan 2013 - 11:54am #

I was actually kinda sorta starting to believe that he was duped. Now I am even more certain he was involved on some level.

RedStorm45 on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:06pm #

That whole summer...not at school...is this guy serious?

gwalther on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:21pm #

Fuck ESPN. Removed all references to Manti saying he met a woman claiming to be Lennay--who could not possibly have been the girl in the pictures of Lennay he had seen to that point--at the ND hotel before the BCS game... Wow.

Class of 2008

penult on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:31pm #

And Tuiasosopo's cousin, a female in her 20s who is real, happened to be diagnosed with leukemia this summer:

http://deadspin.com/5977293/report-two-months-after-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-g...

penult on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:45pm #

Two things about this interview really stick out to me.

ESPN and Te'o triedto do a Friday news dump, except they did it really late Friday night.
Te'o's reasoning for not visiting his girlfriend in the hospital: "it never really crossed my mind"

First, gtfo of here, is that seriously your reason? Second, what about your story that you were flew to Hawaii the day they were going to pull the plug on her. He is a pathological liar and is still telling lies. His story about not knowing Kekua was fake until Wednesday is another lie according to ND statements and others. And the lie about someone claiming to be Lennay coming to the hotel before the MNCG? And ESPN tries to quietly retract those bits from the story with no explanation...HILARIOUS.

One thing I applaud Te'o for: he has made ESPN, Schaap, Wojo, SI, and others look like fools and exposed them for being shitty reporters. Bravo.

Dr. House on 19 Jan 2013 - 1:30pm #

"One thing I applaud Te'o for: he has made ESPN, Schaap, Wojo, SI, and others look like fools and exposed them for being shitty reporters. Bravo"

YOU SIR HAVE EARNED YOUR UPVOTE

onetwentyeight on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:47pm #

L O L

"He tried to speak with Kekua via Skype and FaceTime on several occasions, but the person at the other end of the line was in what he called a 'black box' and wasn't seen."

penult on 19 Jan 2013 - 12:51pm #

LOL, yeah and there's that, too.

Hey, and thanks for following up on that one Schaap! Great reporting!

Doc on 19 Jan 2013 - 2:19pm #

WTF? Never crossed his mind. Fucking priceless. This dude is either the dumbest mf'er on the planet. OR the worst boyfriend in the history of the human race. But I'm going for door number three, a very bad liar. Liar is the only reasonable answer to this entire story. Not being duped, but being a bold faced liar. End of story.

BrewstersMillions on 19 Jan 2013 - 2:19pm #

This makes sense. ESPN was the megaphone by which the Te'o narrative was broadcast so their asses are on the line to look foolish here. All of what Manti is trying to say is all fine and good but the timing of all of this sure seems funny. You'd think the guy would have been ready to defend himself immediately after the Deadspin piece dropped. Its almost as if he vanished for a while to re group, circle the wagons, get his time line right and then appear.....No, it couldn't be that, could it?

4-6 seconds from point A to point B and when you get to point B, be pissed off

d1145fresh on 19 Jan 2013 - 3:40pm #

I love how on Wednesday ESPN among others are saying "this shows we need to do better with our investigative journalism and not take Te'o at his word" then today they are like "welp he said he didn't know so that's good enough."

Torpedo Vegas on 19 Jan 2013 - 3:51pm #

This and the story about how his fake girlfriend faked her death to elude drug dealers makes me wonder if Te'o isn't just reading from a script he is working on for a Lifetime movie.

EvanstonBuckeye on 19 Jan 2013 - 4:28pm #

I'm a middle school teacher. This sounds like the shit that 12 and 13-year olds come up with, especially Te'o's inane excuses for not ever seeing, truly meeting, or visiting this "girlfriend", and his his (in my mind) equally dubious reluctance to fully indict Tuiasosopo (citing the ridiculous "he's suffered enough"). I was amused by this yesterday, but now, like I would be at school, am just annoyed. He's either a complete liar, a complete fucking idiot, or both. I hope the NFL is paying attention.