Duke University

Almost two decades after claiming she was raped at a party thrown by members of the Duke University lacrosse team, former stripper Crystal Mangum admitted Thursday that she lied. It is curious that she finally decided to state the obvious after years of standing by her rape accusation. Mangum, who is currently serving time in prison for the second-degree murder of her boyfriend in 2013, gave an interview that suggested her moment of truth might be tied to a conversion to Christianity. “They trusted me that I wouldn’t betray their trust, and I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,” Mangum said. “I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.

All signs point to the BYU-Duke volleyball incident being just another hate crime hoax. Add it to the list with Jussie Smollett's run-in with MAGA hat-wearing, bleach-pouring racists outside a Chicago subway, Bubba Wallace's terrifying encounter with a noose in a NASCAR garage, or a Colorado Rockies fan's injudicious shouting of a racial slur at a black batter. Duke University volleyball player Rachel Richardson claimed after a match against Brigham Young University two weeks ago that a member of the BYU student section was repeatedly calling her the N-word while she was serving. The only problem? There's no evidence it ever happened. BYU provided an update on its investigation into the incident on Friday.

Duke University volleyball player Rachel Richardson claimed that she was the target of racial slurs during a match against Brigham Young University this past weekend — but her story seems to have less evidence than the rape allegations once leveled against members of her school's lacrosse team. It was actually Lesa Pamplin, Richardson's godmother, who first made the accusation on Twitter. She claimed that Richardson was called the N-word "every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench." Richardson later confirmed the alleged incident in her own Twitter statement.