Today Ronaiah Tuiasosopo let out all his dirty laundry when he told Dr. Phil how he Catfish’d Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o…all due to his strong feelings for the football player!
VIDEO: Manti Te’o Hoaxer Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Finally Speaks Out!
Dr. Phil asked Tuiasosopo about his motive to create Lennay Kekua and start a relationship with Te’o.
“Do you love him?”
“I mean, yeah, if I had pretty much had this escape of Lennay from everything else, what my heart and all my energy went into this, as twisted and confusing as it may be, I did all that I could to help this person become a better person even though I wasn’t getting nothing out of it. … The truth of it is that it happened, I grew feelings, I grew emotions that sooner or later I couldn’t control anymore,” Tuiasosopo said.
He explained to Dr. Phil that he had spent so much time and energy portraying Lennay that he started to develop feelings for Te’o. So much so that he wanted to be involved in Te’o’s life and make him a better person.
“Did you do it for financial gain,” Dr. Phil asked.
“I didn’t ask him for money, I didn’t ask him for an autograph. I never wanted anything and that’s what hurts,” Tuiasosopo said.
He continued, telling Dr. Phil that he didn’t do it maliciously, citing Te’o’s genuine feelings for Lennay as an indication that his intentions were never to take advantage of him.
Tuiasosopo also gave insight to how he created the girl, Lennay. He combined part of his grandmother’s name with his mother’s name to create her first name, and took a name he had heard around the neighborhood for her last name.
He made a profile on Facebook and added Te’o’s cousin as a friend. Shortly after that, Te’o requested Lennay’s friendship. But Te’o was in a relationship.
“As Lennay I never wanted to become a relationship wrecker,” Tuiasosopo said.
He continued, telling Dr. Phil about his feelings for Te’o and how he is trying to “recover” from his homosexuality.
“You’ve heard of recovering drug addicts? It takes a lot of courage to stand and say that,” he said “To recover from homosexuality and this type of thing. Not only that, coming back to your real life, as hard as a task as that is I’m going to do all that I can to live right.”
When they met the first time at a football game, Tuiasosopo told Dr. Phil that he actually did want to tell Te’o everything about the lie.
“I wanted to tell him everything there and that’s the truth! It wasn’t the right time.”
But what about Lennay’s voice on Te’o’s voicemails? Tuiasosopo claimed that the voice was all him. But when Dr. Phil asked him to demonstrate…he got cold feet.
He told Dr. Phil that it was uncomfortable to do the “voice” in front of him, but Dr. Phil wasn’t having it. The talk show host got some FBI voice recognition guys on the case who said that the voice is most likely not Tuiasosopo. But then he agreed to do the voice…behind a curtain.
We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what Lennay, or Tuiasosopo, pulls out the bag. We’ll definitely be tuned in…will you?
