Manti Te'o ESPN Interview: Breaks Silence on Girlfriend Hoax in Audio Interview
For months, Notre Dame football star, Manti Te’o’s story of love and lost was sympathized throughout the media.
The existence of Lennay Kekua, Te’O’s supposed dead girlfriend, was never questioned by credible news outlets.
Not until Deadspin entered the picture.
The sports news website blew the lid off of the whole tale by conducting a thorough investigation, which showed that Manti Te’o’s girlfriend who died from complications with Leukemia never really existed.
After facing brutal ridicule on the internet this week, in which his bizarre love story was compared to an episode of MTV’s Catfish, Te’O spoke out in an audio recorded interview with ESPN.
“I wasn’t faking it, I wasn’t part of this”, is what Te’o told ESPN journalist, Jeffrey Schaap.
Te’o said he knew it would sound crazy to have a relationship with a person solely online. He insisted he was victimized and the parties behind the scheme have already apologized.
Manti told ESPN he received an apology and confession from Ronaiah Tuiasosopo on Twitter two days ago. Te’o said that two guys and a girl were responsible for the hoax, but he doesn’t know exactly who.
He added he didn’t know that it was really a hoax until he received the apology from Tuiasosopo on Wednesday.
Te’o acknowledged the lie he told his father to protect himself from appearing crazy for mourning the death of a woman he never met.
“I knew that -- I even knew that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn’t meet, and that alone people would find out this girl who died I was invest in, and I didn’t meet her as well... So I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away so people wouldn’t think I was some crazy dude.”
Te’o claimed he tried to reach out to Kekua and even meet in L.A and Hawaii on several occasions, but she kept canceling.
Te’o said Kekua asked to receive his checking account number so that she can send him money, but he never complied. The relationship, according to the football star, did not span the total four year period as it has been reported. They were off and on most of that time.
After Kekua’s 'near fatal car crash', the couple would stay on the phone all night. As for why he never took a moment to visit? He said, “It never really crossed my mind. I don’t know. I was in school. “
More questions answered, Te’O didn’t attend Kekua’s funeral because he said her mom told him they didn’t want him to come. He also said, “I didn’t want that to be the first time I saw her laying in a coffin.”
Manti is ready to move forward from the situation and says he doesn’t hold bad feelings toward those involved in the hoax.
“I don’t wish any ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. The embarrassment is big enough.”
