The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist: Where is Ronaiah 'Naya' Tuiasosopo now?

Untold: The Girlfirend Who Didn’t Exist scammer Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo caused jaws to drop when she explained why she catfished NFL player Manti Te’o in a shocking new Netflix documentary.

Naya pretended to be a woman named Lennay Kekua online and messaged the rising football star on Facebook, striking up a relationship.

And the athlete’s world was turned upside down when Lennay ‘died from cancer’, prompting an outpouring of support from the sport’s community.

Lennay’s death, however, was not real and neither was she: instead she was Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo, who said she enjoyed the attention she got with the fake profile.

The sensational revelation uncovered by dogged journalists rocked Manti’s world and nearly threatened his career, although he went on to play for the NFL.

But what happened to Naya? Here is everything you need to know about Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo.

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Who is Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo?

Naya said she was raised in a ‘huge’ family and everything centred around the three ‘f’s’: ‘faith, family and football.’

While she started as a quarterback in sophomore year because all her relatives played sports, she ‘hated’ the game.

‘I just wanted to play football out of obedience and I wanted to make my dad happy,’ she said.

Naya hit the headlines when she was revealed as being behind the ‘girlfriend hoax’ which gripped America.

Where is Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo now?

Naya told porgramme makers that since 2013, when the scam was first exposed, she ‘couldn’t find a job.’

She explained: ‘People would see my name on applications and automatically be like, “Oh no, Ronaiah the catfisher? Yeah, no, we don’t want to hire them.”‘

It’s not clear whether she has a job now, but the documentary films her working in a DIY shop in Seattle, Washington.

In the years since she catfished Manti, Ronaiah has transitioned and identifies as a transgender woman.

She said: ‘After this whole life with Lennay had ended, I couldn’t give Lennay any more of my time. And I remember telling myself “you wanna be a girl, so be a girl.”

‘I put myself on the backburner for all those years so, moving forward, I just had to start living my life.’

Naya has also shown remorse over the girlfriend hoax, saying she is ‘not proud or happy’ with the decisions she made back in 2012.

Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist is available to stream on Netflix now.

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