Ronaiah Tuiasosopo

Dr. Phil's production company is suing Gawker Media over its use of an interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man behind the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax.

The suit claims the company, via its sports blog Deadspin, posted the best parts of the interview online before it had aired in the majority of Dr. Phil markets.

The lawsuit also criticizes the entire "system" of content aggregation.

"A remora is a fish, sometimes called a suckerfish, which attaches itself to other fish like sharks," reads the legal complaint filed this week in Texas.

"The host fish gains nothing from the relationship but the remora is enriched by obtaining benefits (usually food and transportation) from the host."

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Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is very sorry - and, apparently, very skilled at sounding like a woman over the phone.

The young, troubled man behind the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax appeared yesterday on Dr. Phil and, after insisting he stand behind a curtain for a sense of privacy, performed for viewers the voice he used as Lenny Kekua in this drawn-out scheme to fool the linebacker.

Experts on the show said the voices were a match. Watch/listen now:

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo: Lennay Kekua Voice

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Part one of his interview with Dr. Phil aired today, with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo admitting two important things:

1. He set up the entire Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax on his own.
2. He fell in love with Te'o and is a homosexual, but, as a deeply religious man, he hopes to change that.

"It takes a lot of courage to recover from homosexuality and this type of thing and coming back to your real life," Tuiasosopo told the host. "As hard of a task it is, I'm going to do all I can to live right."

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Speaks to Dr. Phil

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According to Manti Te'o, he is not gay. In fact, he is far, far, far from gay.

But Ronaiah Tuiasosopo? The man who has admitted to being behind the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax that rocked a school and a country?

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Interview Tease

In a preview of the interview that will run later this week, Dr. Phil appeared this morning on The Today Show and said of Ronaiah:

"Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love," he says, adding of the taped Q&A: "I ask him straight up... was this a romantic relationship with you? And he says, 'Yes.'"

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Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is about to bare all to Dr. Phil.

According to TMZ sources, the man who has allegedly admitted to masterminding the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax recorded an interview with the attention-starved psychologist yesterday and it will air some time next week.

Described as "emotional and deep," the sit-down reportedly took place after Tuiasosopo and Dr. Phil watched the Manti Te'o interview with Katie Couric, during which the linebacker denied any role in the scheme.

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The lawyer for Ronaiah Tuiasosopo has come out and admitted his client was behind the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax; is very sorry about creating such a mess; and never intended to cause the football star any pain.

Speaking to The New York Daily News, Milton Grimes says Tuiasosopo posed as Lennay Kekua on every phone call with Te'o, detailing the former's extensive vocal and dramatic training, as well as the fact that Tuiasosopo tried out last year for The Voice.

“Come on, Hollywood does it all the time,” Grimes said to those who doubt a man could pull this off. “People can do that.”

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The Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax has taken another odd turn.

TMZ confirms that Dr. Charles Sophy - a psychiatrist whose famous patients include Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton - visited Ronaiah Tuiasosopo last night, the man who has allegedly admitted to orchestrating this perplexing scheme.

Sophy was caught by cameras leaving Tuiasosopo's California home, but he refused to divulge the reason for his visit.

It's certainly safe to assume, however, that this meeting was related to the Te'o story.

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An anonymous source tells ESPN that the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax was perpetrated entirely by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, and that the star Notre Dame linebacker played no role at all in the widely-publicized scam.

The unnamed woman alleges to be an acquaintance of Tuiasosopo. She told the network that this 22-year old California resident phoned her in early December and offered up a tearful confession.

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With Manti Te'o expected to speak later today and address the girlfriend hoax that has left a country baffled, let's turn our attention for a moment over to Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

A 22-year old whose relatives include a pair of former NFL players, Tuiasosopo played high school football in California and is reportedly a huge fan of USC.

Many believe he has either been working with Te'o on this cover-up or he's the "Catfish" behind the scam and has been posing as Lennay Kekua for years in order to punish Te'o for choosing Notre Dame over USC.

The original Deadspin article that broke this hoax lists Tuiasosopo as the individual who obtained the photo that was believed to be Lennay, the one associated with her Twitter and Facebook accounts (above).

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