Manti Te'o Was Talking to Ronaiah Tuiasosopo - Who Was Pretending to Be a Female - on the Phone For Hours During Many of Those Calls

Wednesday, ESPN collected spreadsheets from Te’o with all the phone calls the Notre Dame linebacker made to the person he thought was his fake girlfriend – to be clear, they are not actual phone records – in 2012. Now, the Daily News drops a bomb, courtesy of the lawyer of alleged hoax mastermind, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo: Manti Te’o wasn’t talking to a girl all that time on the phone – a lot of the time, he was talking to a man pretending to be a girl. And that man was Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

"The soul-baring chats between the star linebacker and the man posing as his phantom girlfriend were the linchpin of their fake fairy-tale romance. But Te’o apparently never realized it was Tuiasosopo disguising his voice to assume the persona of stunning, sassy Stanford coed Kekua."

Blockbuster? I’d say so. And for the segment of the population who has been trying to advance the Manti-might-be-gay angle, well, I’m sure you’ll focus on these quotes from Tuiasosopo’s lawyer:

"“This wasn’t a prank to make fun,” Grimes told The News. “It was establishing a communication with someone. … It was a person with a troubled existence trying to reach out and communicate and have a relationship.” Grimes declined to answer when asked to elaborate on his client’s intentions or what type of relationship he wanted with the college football star: “I wouldn’t describe his issues at this time.”"

So this wasn’t all part of a Leukemia money scam … it was more about having a relationship? So a man with a ‘troubled existence’ wants to reach out and have a phone/text relationship … with another man who just happens to be one of the best defensive players in college football, playing for a Catholic University? [Daily News]