Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist

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Part of a series on Manti Te'o's Girlfriend Hoax / Teoing. [View Related Entries]

About

Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, also known as the Manti Te'o Documentary, refers to a Netflix documentary about Hawaiian American football player Manti Te'o's Girlfriend Hoax from 2012 to 2013 when he was catfished in college by a fake girlfriend who he met online. After the documentary was released in August 2022, discussion and Manti Te'o memes emerged on social media, similar to those made in 2013 when the story first broke. Lots of reactions surfaced about the hoaxer Naya Tuiasosopo's transgender transition.

Background

In October 2012, then-Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o^[1] appeared in a YouTube video (reupload shown below) to speak about the recent losses of his grandmother and his girlfriend, both of whom had passed away from illnesses only six hours apart on September 12th, 2012.^[2]

On January 16th, 2013, Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey of Deadspin^[3] published an investigation into Lennay Kekua's (Te'o's girlfriend) identity after finding there was no record of her existence. They found that the photographs used to identify Kekua in the media belonged to a 22-year-old Californian woman who did not know Te'o. As she was looking at the social media accounts that supposedly belonged to Kekua, she noticed that the image used on Kekua's Twitter background (shown below) had not been posted anywhere online previously. Taken in December 2012, this specific photo was sent directly to high school acquaintance Ronaiah Tuiasosopo after he had asked her to take a photo holding up a sign that said 'MSMK" to "put in a slideshow" to help boost the morale of his cousin who had been in a serious car accident. After finding the photo, she called Tuiasosopo who acted strangely, but told her not to worry about it. The photo was then removed from the profile. The article was subsequently posted to Reddit twice, earning 2374 points in the NFL subreddit^[4] and 1329 points in the News subreddit.^[5]

Approximately one hour after the Deadspin story was published, Notre Dame responded via Facebook ^[6] claiming that Te'o had been the victim of a cruel hoax and the school would be assisting Te'o and his family in an investigation into the matter. The post was shared more than 1,700 times and garnered more than 1,780 comments. An hour after this statement was released, Te'o shared his thoughts on the matter^[7] stating that he was incredibly embarrassed by the situation and acknowledged that he had only maintained his relationship with Kekua online, despite his previous argument^[8] that they had met at a game.

The controversy and hoax led to multiple memes in early 2013. One trend that specifically emerged was Te'oing, which involved creators taking selfies with imaginary, invisible people.

The Hoaxer

Later, it was revealed that the Hoaxer was a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who created the fake profile of Lennay Kekua in 2008.^[3] Tuiasosopo later appeared on ABC News to talk about the catfishing with the interview clip being uploaded to YouTube on February 1st, 2013, and earning roughly 16,000 views over nine years (shown below).

Manti Te'o Documentary 2022

On August 25th, 2019, ESPN Senior Writer Don Van Natta Jr. first hinted at the possibility of a Netflix documentary about Te'o's Girlfriend Hoax in a tweet^[9] that earned 12 likes in three years. On January 5th, 2021, sports news outlet Awful Announcing^[10] confirmed the documentary in an article. Allegedly, both Te'o and Tuiasosopo would be participating in its production and filming. On September 10th, 2021, Awful Announcing^[11] published another article, further confirming that the doc would be a part of Netflix's Untold series.

On July 19th, 2022, Netflix uploaded the documentary's first official trailer on YouTube, earning roughly 1.1 million views and 15,000 likes in one month (shown below). It was announced for a release date of August 16th, 2022.

On August 15th, 2022, the verified Twitter^[12] account of Netflix tweeted a trailer, earning roughly 3,300 likes and 390,100 views in one day.

Online Reactions

On the day it was released for streaming, August 16th, 2022, the documentary generated buzz and discussion across social media platforms like Twitter. For instance, on August 16th, Twitter^[13] user adorekem tweeted a screenshot of the doc's Netflix page, captioning it, "Guys this documentary is insane. My mouth has dropped way too many times." Her tweet received roughly 126,100 likes in one day. Also on August 16th, Twitter^[14] user thorku tweeted a video from the doc, captioning it, "We all owe Manti Te'o an apology," and earning roughly 8,200 likes and 369,500 views in less than a day (shown below).

The documentary allowed the hoaxer, Naya Tuiasosopo, to speak about her entire experience, including her transgender transition that happened after the story broke in 2013. Many Twitter users believed she was using her new gender identity to justify the catfishing.

For instance, on August 16th, 2022, Twitter^[15] user Lindi_MaLindz tweeted that she has "zero sympathy" for Naya but nonetheless that there is "so much to unpack." The tweet received roughly 2,400 likes in one day (shown below, left). Also on August 16th, Twitter^[16] user mooo_fasa tweeted something similarly critical about Tuiasosopo, earning roughly 2,100 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

Others on Twitter^[17] believed Tuiasosopo was in the wrong, however, they also believed that she didn't deserve the transphobic comments being levied against her. Instead, they levied harsher criticism towards the NFL and sports media of the early 2010s in being homophobic and transphobic when handling the hoax. For instance, on August 16th, 2022, Twitter^[18] user jodie_os tweeted, "The Manti Te'o doc doesn't talk enough about how his career prospects were mostly harmed by the fact that the NFL is outstandingly homophobic," earning roughly 2,200 likes in one day (shown below).