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Do we owe Manti Te’o an apology? If you watch the documentary you will feel bad

Manti Te'o deserves an apology. The former NFL player was truly in love with an imaginary person.
Manti Te’o deserves an apology. The former NFL player was truly in love with Lennay Kekua. If you watch the documentary you can hear it in his voice. It is sad.

A decade later, we revisit the Manti Te’o story and I have to agree with Pat McAfee on this one, I think we all owe the former star linebacker from Notre Dame an apology.

Ten years ago we did not really know what catfishing was, I mean if you watch the Netflix original documentary you can tell Manti Te’o truly loved a female that did not exist.

The girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, was the social media creation of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who has since come out as a trans woman and goes by Naya Tuiasosopo.

Pat McAfee feels we all should apologize to Te’o because he was truly trapped. It cost him millions of dollars too. He dropped out of the first round because of his strange story.

Te’o went on to have a seven-year NFL career spent with the San Diego Chargers, New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears despite dealing with anxiety and being the subject of jokes on a national stage.

He became the butt of many jokes and he had to actually seek consultant from therapists, who advised him to forgive himself. He said Jay Z was the one that truly helped him realize what he had to do.

“Cam Jordan with the Saints took a bunch of us teammates to a Jay-Z concert,” Te’o said, recalling the 2017 concert during a Tuesday (Aug. 16) interview on CBS Mornings. “And at that concert, Jay-Z opens with saying these words, ‘You cannot heal what you don’t reveal.’ And it may have been just some random words to everybody, but for me, at that time, it hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“In order for me to heal from this, I need to reveal it,” the 31-year-old said, referring to the rapper’s 4:44 opener “Kill Jay Z.” Te’o continued, “So I challenged myself at that time if anyone had asked about it or had questions about it  that I would be open, that I would those hard conversations and I started to feel the strength I got from talking about it.

Te’o truly went through a lot. He believed the person he loved died. He believed the person he loved was involved in a bad car accident. He had no clue he was a joke. I am glad he is talking about it, but I personally made fun of him and I am wrong. I’m sorry Manti Te’o.

Damond Talbot

NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com

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