Reactions To News That Notre Dame Football Star’s Girlfriend Doesn’t Exist

The website Deadspin broke the news January 16 that star football player Manti Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, who seemed to be dying tragically of leukemia, is a complete fabrication. But who created the fiction of her relationship with Mr. Teo is unclear, as is the reason for that story. Notre Dame is standing by Mr. Teo, who told Notre Dame officials in December that the girlfriend whom he thought had died in September was in fact not dead and the story was more complicated than that. The media obviously continued to report the story through the bowl season.