Comments about ‘Who is Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man allegedly behind Lennay Kekua, Manti Te'o's non-existent dead girlfriend? (Updated)’

Te'o still referred to his imaginary girlfriend even after he said he was made aware of the "hoax" as reported by ESPN this morning.

That screams willing participant to me.

This Hoaxer is exaclty what gives Christianity a bad name. Hypocrisy and deceit to the max.

@CougarBlue

Not at all. Christianity teaches us we all are sinners. As such, this fits right in line.

Turning away from one's sins is what Christianity teaches we can do through Christ...this guy still has a chance to do just that.

Nothing in this adds up. Everyone just needs to come clean.

@Teleste
I think that after the hoax became apparent to Manti on Dec. 26, he took the necessary and proper actions. He had a national championship to play for, plus there were hundreds of legal considerations for him personally and the university.....so on and so forth. Sometimes you don't just get a call from a person you thought was dead and go on the news the next day and announce it to the entire world. This type of thing was on a need to know basis only. Manti and his legal team were working to tell the public, but they needed to do it at a time when they knew some factual material to go on. How would you respond to getting a call from a "dead" person? I for one would not just go out and announce it on Oprah the next day. Te'o was victimized.

@Vladhagen

He and ND have said he was made aware on December 6...not 26.

He made repeated references to "her" after that time. On December 8 during Heisman weekend he even said something to the extent that her death was the toughest point of the season.

I still don't buy it.

Let's take a look at what we are asked to believe here.
1) Manti was duped by a family friend.
2) The hoax went on for three years. How can that be? The reveal comes after a couple of weeks unless there is serious cash flowing.
3) There is overhead to run a scam like this. A phone, a girl, time to be available 24/7 and talk for eight hours on the phone, the logistics of almost meeting...
4) He remained hidden from the family all this time.

This still doesn't smell right.

@Oatmeal

"Nothing in this adds up. Everyone just needs to come clean."

I think I detect a future special feature on the Oprah Winfrey network!

Who cares?? I've got golf to play tomorrow.

His friend is trying to bail him out.
He knows he's caught for his lies.
Ah the celebrity life.

I think we should reserve judgment until we know all the facts and the facts are proven. Even then, who are we to judge? Is there anybody on the earth that have never lied?

I have to confess that I've had many women deceive me online. One woman claimed she was imprisoned, raped, and molested by a guy and finally broke free and he was in jail. I googled this and found nothing. I called the local newspaper and found nothing about it. This woman had me going for about 6 months. I admit I was ready to go pay her a visit, but until that time, I thought she was xyz and she was abc.

It happens. And if Manti is a nice guy, without a lot of experience with women, and potentially about to be rich, it can happen in a big way.

All the best to him and his family!

I am guessing he is his boyfriend.

All should read carefully a CES talk given by Elder David Bednar entitled THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE. Giving heed to Elder Bednar's Apostolic warning could have saved a lot of people a lot of grief. Sad! Really.

Lets wait until all the facts are in.The media can't let go because they were duped and now everyone is jumping to conclusions based on the media which can not be trusted.Go out and get a little exercise besides Jumping to Conclusions -- " O that men could see a little clearer, or judge less harshly where they can not see".

To all of you who are blaming the media here keep in mind that the Te'os played the media and brought this on themselves. Live by the sword; die by the sword.
If he had kept this fantasy lover to himself there would be no public backlash. The parents joined in as well.

I think a very important aspect that many are missing is the stigma associated with online dating.
When a high profile football player has a girlfriend he met online that he has never met in person can you imagine the ridicule other players would put on him for this? Most football players live a very different lifestyle from Manti and would already be prone to ridicule a guy who doesn't consummate every dating relationship. To me this explains why he was never forthcoming about the fact that they had never met in person. It would label him a weird and nerdy.

Secondly, after the media jumped on this story it was and would be very hard to come forward as soon as he knew that he had been duped and tell everyone--'hey I'm a really simplistic, gullible guy.'

Give the guy a break.

Time to move on.

To: ESPN,the DN and the rest of the media-Let's move on from this story,leave it to The National Inquirer. He's young, he made mistakes. Hopefully he'll learn from them. The depth of the coverage from sports media seems predatory to me.

Manti Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap he was a victim and "never" part of an elaborate hoax. Details of the interview are posted and hearing Manti's side of the story clears up alot of the questions about how he was duped and why he continued to believe that Lennay Kekua might still be a real person until just hours before the Deadspin story broke.

What's most apparent is that Manti was not involved in some elaborate plot to embellish his Heisman candidacy, although he may have embellished his "relationship" with Lennay at times.

Give the guy a break, compared to what has gone on in Washington and Wall Street the past few years the guy is a saint!. I am more upset with a media that thinks they can print articles that go against all human logic and we are all supposed to accept it. The holes in the Manti Teo story are so large you can drive a truck through it. Yet we are all supposed to believe some ESPN writer, because he says so. The ND explanation was so lame you would have to be more gullible than Manti to believe it. Do these writers really believe the general public is that stupid..Maybe so?