Everyone’s coming out of the woodwork to talk about Manti Te’o now. Here’s a juicy bit from an unnamed “former teammate” who claims Te’o was an attention whore, and everyone on the team knew it (espn.com):

In September, the grandmother of Te’o died, and it was widely reported that his girlfriend died hours later. Media outlets pounced on the story as Notre Dame began their march to the title game. After Deadspin.com broke the hoax story, however, multiple media reports have said that players thought that Te’o had only met Lennay Kekua once and that it wasn’t really accurate to call her his girlfriend. But as condolences poured in, Te’o “played along,” according to the teammate, who wished to remain anonymous.

The teammate portrayed the move as part of the All-American’s personality, telling ESPN that Te’o liked attention so much that he would sometimes point himself out to friends when he was on television.

Now obviously, since this is coming from an anonymous source you have to take it with a grain of salt. That being said, it sure feeds right into the “he did it for the publicity” line of thinking.

I find it interesting, though, that this could be true regardless of whether he was in on the hoax. Also interesting: this is a new angle that, if true, would tarnish his character even if he was indeed a victim and not a perpetrator. If this anonymous former teammate is telling the truth, then at the very least Te’o knowingly let the whole country grieve for him, knowing damn well he wasn’t in love with no damn Lennay Kekua. (Alleged) shame on you, Manti. (Alleged) shame!

There were more interesting tidbits from the ESPN.com article that I neither knew about nor even considered:

The revelation of the hoax has been far-reaching, a Notre Dame graduate who launched a campaign to raise money for a cancer research group in memory of Te’o's girlfriend says he is “shell-shocked” to learn the woman didn’t exist.

Dan Tudesco, a 2006 graduate who now works in public relations in New York, set up an online account at fundraising website indiegogo.com on Jan. 9 to solicit $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Inc. The initial pitch said donations would go to the society in memory of Lennay Kekua and in honor of Te’o, “two individuals who have been an inspiration to us through an iconic season.”

It’s like some weird alternate universe where Rudy and Lance Armstrong morphed into one sinister, phony, narcissist.

I’m not saying that organizations that support medical research or victims of serious medical diseases are suddenly meaningless or worthless just because they were inspired by a lie. But it is kinda shitty when you base your entire charitable marketing efforts around the life and death of someone that was less real than Max Headroom.

Murray: “You can’t fake a tape! Pictures don’t lie!”

It’ll be interesting to see how many more “innocent bystander” stories like this one come out over the next several days. This just goes to show, for all you budding fraud perps out there, catfishing can mess with a whole lot more than the target.