The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist: Where is Manti Te’o’s catfish now?

Untold has released the first two episodes in its latest series which explores the story of American NFL football player, Manti Te’o. He was catfished by a woman under the name Lennay and soon after it was revealed she wasn’t who she said she was, his life and career began to spiral out of control. The documentary episodes dive into Manti’s sporting success and how strong he was following his girlfriend’s death, his girlfriend who turned out to be a catfish. But who is the real person behind Lennay Kekua? This is everything we know about Naya Tuiasosopo and what she is up to now:

Who is Naya Tuiasosopo?

Naya was thrusted into the spotlight after an article on Deadspin was published about Manti Te’o’s fake dead girlfriend. Coming from a family of football players, Naya never took an interest in the sport and in 2012, Naya made a fake Facebook profile under the name of Lennay Kekua and used pictures of a girl called Diane O’Meara, who Naya went to school with.

After speaking to some people and breaking it off after they asked to meet in person, Naya began to talk to Manti Te’o. Over a couple of years of friendship, the two began a relationship despite never meeting one another. Naya decided to end the relationship and in doing so, created a story about Lennay being in a fatal car accident after a months-long fight with leukemia, the same day Manti’s grandmother had passed away.

via Netflix

Speaking with Dr Phil about why she decided to kill off Lennay, Naya said the two had an argument about Manti speaking with other girls on Skype, including two of his ex-girlfriends. Naya recalled Te’o telling her he never needed her and he never wanted to see her, and so she decided to kill of Lennay.

Naya said: “As twisted and confusing as it may be, yeah. I cared for this person. I did all that I could to make this person a better person even if I wasn’t getting anything out of it. Truth of it is, that happened, I grew feelings, I grew emotions that sooner or later I couldn’t control anymore. When I tried to end things I tried every other way to end this I tried this lie and this lie and this lie but nothing would work.”

Where is Naya Tuiasosopo now?

Naya currently lives in California and works as an assistant store manager at Lowe’s Home Improvement. In the Netflix documentary, Naya confessed that using Lennay as a fake persona helped her figure out her sexuality. Naya is remorseful for her actions and said she is “not proud or happy” with the decisions she made in 2012.

Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist is now available on Netflix. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.