Via USA Today:
Star linebacker Manti Te’o, whose relationship with a deceased girlfriend was central to the narrative of his Heisman Trophy campaign and Notre Dame’s unbeaten regular season, was the victim of an elaborate hoax, the school said Wednesday after a Deadspin story alleged the woman never existed.
In a statement … Te’o said he had developed an emotional relationship a woman he had met online and was “the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke.”
… Te’o had talked openly during the season about his supposed relationship with a former Stanford student named Lennay Kekua … (who) was said to have lost her battle with leukemia on Sept. 12, just hours after Te’o learned that his 72-year old grandmother had passed away.
The story of how Te’o dealt with massive personal tragedy became front and center in his rise to national consciousness. …
Te’o’s statement contradicted the suggestion by Deadspin that he may have been in on the hoax. … “We know it’s a hoax… The only question out there is exactly what Manti knew about it,” Timothy Burke, one of the authors of the piece on Deadspin, said during an appearance Wednesday on CBS Radio.”
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