The Manti Te’o hoax prompted Gregory Crosby to describe his relationship with a woman who didn’t exist. How he found out:
When two days went by without a call, and I couldn’t reach Myella on her phone, I at last gave in to the suspicions that had grown within me, and called a third party who very reluctantly answered my questions. Yes: Myella, I learned, was the creation of an acquaintance of mine from years ago, a woman I barely knew, who I later discovered had a long history as a pathological liar, three kids, an abusive ex-husband and fantasies of another life, a life that I seemed to represent. It turned out that she had been arrested for unpaid traffic tickets and spent two days in jail without her phone, hence the wholly uncharacteristic silence that led to my call. I should have been devastated, and if I’d found out the truth early on, I would have been… but after a year and a half, mostly what I felt was relief that I’d finally found the strength to tear the veil away, along with a great well of anger and sorrow that only a few months of therapy could dissipate.
(Video: One of the voicemails from Manti Te’o’s “girlfriend” released to Katie Couric. Listen to others here.)
The Dish 