Bear with us, because we’re still wrapping our heads around this story. We don’t even know how to go about this because it’s so twisted. Sports fans are obviously acquainted with the Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o and the sad saga of his recently deceased girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. Lennay had leukemia, diagnosed after being in a car accident, and Te’o was the model boyfriend and held her hand literally and figuratively in every way, until the day she passed away. It’s a story that moved a nation. Now, news has broken that — and we’re quite shocked typing this — Lennay never actually existed. We hear your WTF and raise you one. Deadspin claims that the whole story, this inspirational and heartwarming tale of love and loyalty … is a hoax. Because, according to the site, Social Security Administration records reveal that this no Lennay, so “her” whole identity, including her Twitter and Instagram account and photographs, etc, were all made up and spun into the story we all believed.
Considering she was supposed to be from Stanford, the university doesn’t have any records of her existence, either. There are no records of her death and hardly any online evidence of her at all. What’s even more weird? Those photographs that were supposedly Lennay? They’re of a completely random 22-year-old California woman who is most definitely not Manti Te’o's girlfriend, alive or deceased. She’s never even met him. So yeah, we know how Notre Dame likes to create heroic myths about their players, but what the hell is this? It seems that, allegedly, Lennay was made up by a man (we’re going to find out more of who “he” is when more information breaks) to create more publicity for Manti Te’o's Heisman campaign. Read more…
