Manti Te'o isn't the first high-profile athlete to get duped by a "woman" on Twitter—and he won't be the last. In fact, he wasn't even the only high-profile athlete who found out that he was being duped by a woman online last month. According a new report that was just posted on the NFL's website, there were also a few NFL players who found out that they were being duped online by a fake female Twitter follower about a month ago, too.
Although none of them have admitted to being in a relationship with the woman in question like Te'o did, the report says that at least four players on the Washington Redskins got involved with a fictional follower named Sidney Ackerman late last year. She used the Twitter handle @RedRidnH00d and a photo of adult film star C.J. Miles in order to start relationships with the players. And, she was successful in doing it. As a result, she often traded direct messages with the players on Twitter, exchanged text messages with them, and even claimed to be Miles after one of them got suspicious and sent her a pornographic clip featuring the model.
But, eventually, the players realized that "Ackerman" wasn't who she claimed to be and alerted the Redskins director of player development Philip Daniels. He then stepped in to warn other players about "Ackerman" and even chased down the woman who was behind the Twitter account. It turned out that she was a woman but that that she was (obviously!) not who she was pretending to be while conversing with the Redskins players.
"I think it was all about attention," Daniels told NFL.com. "I don't think it was any of the other stuff. It was just about being able to talk to them, pretending to be someone they aren't. It was never a situation where guys were giving money or anything like that."
In the report, NFL.com reporter Jeff Darlington also discusses how he was able to track down another Twitter account with the handle @RideAndDieChick that was essentially doing the same thing to other pro NFL players as well. You can read the rest of the report over here.
Is this really what the world is coming to right now? If so, we can only imagine all of the other Catfish-inspired stories involving pro athletes that are going to come out in the weeks ahead.
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[via NFL]
