Many people enjoyed a good laugh in early 2013 at the expense of Manti Te’o, the superstar Notre Dame linebacker whose private life became all too public when it turned out that his sad story—namely, that his grandmother and girlfriend had passed away on the same day—was a lie, since his supposed paramour wasn’t real. Yet in truth, Te’o’s saga remains a nightmare of unwarranted humiliation and lasting, career-derailing damage, with Te’o’s psychological well-being and NFL prospects both rocked by the revelation that he had been the victim of a catfishing ruse. Te’o was transformed from a hero into a figure of ridicule even though, as The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist contends, he’s actually someone who deserves our pity and compassion.
The premiere installment of Season 2 of Netflix’s non-fiction series Untold, The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist (Aug. 16) is a two-hour examination of a tawdry ordeal that doubles as an act of confession, air-clearing, and healing for its two subjects. Te’o sits down for an extensive interview with directors Ryan Duffy and Tony Vainuku, detailing his stratospheric highs and dismal lows and, in doing so, answering many of the questions that dominated TV and talk radio in the wake of his national embarrassment. Te’o is simultaneously enthusiastic, earnest and grief-stricken while recounting his experiences, his excitement when discussing his glory years with the Fighting Irish offset by the haunted and teary-eyed look that seizes his face upon remembering the emotional violation he suffered, and the tabloid-ready catastrophe that ensued.
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Te’o, however, is only one side of this coin, and The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist benefits from the additional participation of Naya Tuiasosopo, the individual who struck up an online and phone/text romance with Te’o by posing as Lennay Kekua, a fictitious female. In the years since their relationship became fodder for CNN, ESPN and Saturday Night Live, Tuiasosopo has come out as a transgender woman, and though Duffy and Vainuku’s two-part episode notes that no one interviewed for this documentary was aware of her transition at the time of filming, it’s nonetheless central to the proceedings. Candid and apologetic—albeit to a degree that likely won’t satisfy every viewer—Tuiasosopo fills in the gaps regarding how this all came to be. In the process, she paints this ruse-gone-awry as a result of her identity-related challenges, which may not be much of an excuse for the monumental and enduring harm she caused but at least explains the underpinnings of this mess.
As she elucidates in The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist, Naya was never comfortable in her own skin, and ultimately responded by creating a fake online persona, Lennay, who more accurately expressed how she truly felt. To bolster this guise, she used photos of a high school friend named Diane O’Meara before messaging various men. Having grown up in a Polynesian clan that prioritized faith, family and football, Naya had an immediate bond with Te’o, whose cousin verified Lennay as legitimate (given that they had previously chatted online), and who believed Naya to be a kindred spirit who could relate to every aspect of his life. Before long, they were virtually dating. Te’o’s best friend and teammate Robby Toma admits that all of this was a tad strange, but he also concedes that long-distance romances weren’t uncommon (he himself was in one). Moreover, because it made Te’o happy—and helped him cope with the strangeness of relocating from his tropical Mormon Hawaiian community to the midwestern Catholic cold of Notre Dame—it largely seemed like a net positive.
