Netflix Tip of the Day: Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist

Not a ‘standard’ true crime tip today, but one that I found very interesting to watch. Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist tells the story of Manti Te’o, a promising American football star whom many thought would go far. He was born in Hawaii and eventually played at Notre Dame during his studies in Indiana.

On September 11, 2012, he tragically revealed news: both his grandmother and his girlfriend had passed away on the same day. His girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, was studying at Stanford University and had been involved in a car accident. While she was being treated for that, doctors discovered leukemia and that was the end of the story. Te’o missed no games after this heavy loss, as he had promised his deceased girlfriend never to miss a game. The media picked this up — understandably — on a grand scale, as it was, of course, quite an emotional story.

But was that really the case? In 2013, two journalists, Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey, received an anonymous tip that this girlfriend might not have existed at all. In January of that year, they published an article stating that Lennay Kekua was never Te’o's girlfriend, in fact: that she was not a person at all. The photos that the American football player had of his girlfriend were actually of Diane O’Meara. She was a classmate of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, and she was said to be the mastermind behind this catfish.

And from that moment on, things got quite strange, and the media feasted on it. Many accused Manti Te’o of really knowing that his ‘girlfriend’ never existed but using this purely for publicity. They found evidence of this in somewhat contradictory statements from him: he had said that he and Lennay Kekua met after a game and that she had visited him in Hawaii, which is of course difficult if she doesn’t exist at all. Later, he stated that their relationship had been ‘only online’.

The woman behind this major catfish operation even appeared on Dr. Phil and eventually admitted to Manti Te’o that she was indeed the guilty one. But by then, the damage to his reputation and career had already been done.

I recommend this two-part documentary. I find it truly astonishing that someone, even though 2012 was a while ago, can have a relationship for years with someone they have only spoken to online. Admittedly: MTV’s Catfish was not on TV back then, but still. And what drives such a catfish anyway? Seems to me like the most false start a relationship can have...