Manti Te'o's Net Worth From NFL Career Wasn’t In The Netflix Catfish Doc & It’s So Much Money
...even though he lost nearly half of his earnings because of the scandal.
Football Linebacker Manti Te'o had a unique NFL career following his rise to fame at Notre Dame for college sports. He racked up a hefty net worth, but Netflix's documentary about his involvement in a catfish scandal never mentioned what he made.
The two-part series, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, tells the college star's story about his relationship with a person behind a fake profile who lied about dying of leukemia. Te'o had dedicated his whole senior season to this "girlfriend" when headlines dropped that she wasn't real and the entire thing was a hoax.
The situation deeply affected the player's career when getting chosen for the League, though his talents superseded him, and although the streaming service didn't talk about it, he did pretty well for himself.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, he made a total of $10.4 million in his total salary for his NFL career, but there was a steep difference in his contracts from graduation to his last signed team.
After leaving Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana in 2012, what would have been a first-round pick became a second-round pick to the Los Angeles Chargers. Just one round alone docked him a big paycheck.
Spotrac claims he made $5,172,420 for a four-year contract with the California team in 2013-2016, which included a signing bonus of over $2 million.
He then signed a two-year contract with the New Orleans Saints from 2017-2019, though his earnings changed by the year. In 2017-2018 he made $5 million; in 2019, that number decreased to $805,000.
In 2020, he signed a $132,000 one-year contract with the Chicago Bears.
Overall, Te'o is reported to have a net worth of $3.5 million. Now, the athlete lives in Utah with his wife, Jovi Nicole Engbino and their daughter. The couple is pregnant with a son on the way.
While the girlfriend hoax transformed his career, he is now sharing what happened publicly, as well as the person behind the fake account.
You can watch the docuseries currently on Netflix.