Ryan Lochte, Olympic gold medalist and full-time frat boy god, has some explaining to do. The widely circulated story Lochte told about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio last week has turned into a full scale international scandal. Initially, the story Lochte and his swimming bros (James Feigen, Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz) told was that they were “victims” of a robbery by some men posing as police officers after a night of clubbing.
Here’s Lochte telling NBC News’ Billy Bush about the alleged incident.
An investigation into the matter was launched and things started to get strange, as there were some holes in the stories the U.S. Olympians told the authorities. Some of their accounts of the alleged crime did not match up, so the Brazilian police wanted to have a word with each of them—you know, to see if the Americans might’ve mixed up actual events with scenes from that movie they saw several years ago, City of Gods. Well, Lochte and Feigen had already skipped town and flown back to America, leaving Conger and Bentz in the country to face the heat.
Yesterday, Lochte’s swimming bros Conger and Bentz were pulled off their flight from Rio to the United States and had their passports seized in order to answer more questions in the case.
Of course, Twitter is having a field day with this developing diplomatic drama. The hashtag #LochteGate was born and people are going in.
Checkout some of the funniest tweets we’ve seen so far to understand why Ryan Lochte and his squad are now standing at the front of the class catching all hell from social media.
Might be time for Ryan Lotche to just plead the fifth. #LochteGate pic.twitter.com/zD8JSJwCPr
— karilynn (@kari728) August 18, 2016
#LochteGate continues….. pic.twitter.com/mRUIM9cSqH
— SYKE (@SykeOnAir) August 18, 2016
Watching #LochteGate unfold pic.twitter.com/0NapNvmDyk
— Jeff Ravishing (@JDejuan2) August 18, 2016
Live footage of Ryan Lochte leaving Rio. #LochteGate pic.twitter.com/Vt1YO3uSvX
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) August 18, 2016
Sooo… were you robbed in Rio, Ryan? #LochteGate pic.twitter.com/EDe101fgAm
— Katherine (@KatJWin) August 18, 2016
#LochteGate is quickly becoming my fave story from 2016 pic.twitter.com/SwP0o2dXxW
— Kayla Cobb (@KaylCobb) August 18, 2016
#LochteGate Okay we all know they made up that story to get publicity & attention they come back to the states. pic.twitter.com/Nozy4NzxUU
— Chris Christi (@ChrisAd09390788) August 18, 2016
Me when I originally heard his story #LochteGate pic.twitter.com/gAkIaKqO2D
— Paige Arata (@PaigeArata) August 18, 2016
Watch as VH1 staffers talk about the hottest Olympic athletes at Rio 2016 in the video below.