Girlfriend Hoax and Gay Rumors beset Football Player Manti Te'o

I'm sure some of you heard about Notre Dame's Manti Te'o.

He's the linebacker who had relationship with a girl for 3 years, then she died of leukemia.

Well, apparently it was a hoax. The girl never existed. So the media is going wild about this story; I heard about it through my students yesterday. But now the rumors have started and leading the pack are the gay rumors.

Here's more from Outsports:

We’ve seen rumors and heard stories about countless athletes in the past. But not since Troy Aikman have I been bombarded on email, text, Twitter and phone calls about the sexual orientation of any athlete the way I was today about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o. The questions are in response to Deadspin’s article on Wednesday revealing that the story of the deceased girlfriend of Te’o was a complete hoax, and that Te’o (allegedly) lied about 1) knowing the woman, 2) that the woman existed and 3) having a girlfriend at all. 

The article points to a Mormon football-player-turned-gospel-singer named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who is allegedly behind the twitter account of the artificial girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. The two men know each other and saw each other as recently as November when Notre Dame played USC. Tuiasosopo and his family were on-field guests at the game: 

USC was unable to confirm this, but a tweet from Tuiasosopo’s since-deleted account suggests he and Te’o did see each other on that West Coast trip. “Great night with my bro @MTeo_5! #Heisman #574L,” Ronaiah tweeted on Nov. 23, the night before the game. 

The lengths to which Tuiasosopo allegedly went to create this account are detailed in the Deadspin article and include allegedly lying to family members. And according to at least one person Deadspin spoke to, Te’o was in on it the whole time.

Lord, somebody needs to clear this up or come out, because it can only get messy from here