US Sports

In one of the most bizarre sports story we have ever seen a massive US college football star may have been hoaxed when he spoke of his dead girlfriend.

You may remember the US college football game that took place in Dublin during the summer. It was won by Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish, and the team went unbeaten for the year, losing in the college football version of the Super Bowl, the BCS championship game, to Alabama earlier this month.

Their biggest star is Manti Te'o, a beast of a linebacker who ended the year as one of the finalists for the Heisman Trophy, the biggest individual prize in college sports.

One of the narratives that captured the media imagination was the tragedy that hit Te’o this season. In September he lost his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and just six hours later his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, was reported to have died of leukemia.

Now Deadspin are reporting that Lennay never existed, with no evidence of her death, a funeral and a whole heap of other corroborating evidence. It is alleged they never 'met' and what exactly Te’o was talking about now in interviews all year is unclear. It seems he may have been duped by someone pretending to be Lennay, in a prank that got way, way out of hand.

The full article can be read here and with Notre Dame now confirming the hoax, this is a crazy, crazy story hat will surely run and run.