MYSTERY

Manti Te’o Admits to Tailoring His Stories

But swears he was not in on the girlfriend hoax.

In an interview with ESPN, Manti Te’o insisted that he was “never, not ever” involved in scamming the country with the story of his fake girlfriend, “Lennay Kekua.” Although Deadspin broke the story of the Notre Dame linebacker's fake girlfriend, ESPN landed the first interview. “I wasn’t faking it,” Te’o told reporter Jeremy Schaap, but took credit for some misleading details—like telling his father he’d met Kekua in Hawaii when he hadn’t—as a means of keeping the fact from the public that he’d never met his alleged girlfriend. “I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away,” he admitted. Meanwhile, fake-relationship expert Nev Schulman feels for Te’o and is on the case.