Manti Te’o might have briefly lied about Lennay Kekua after discovering in early December that his former girlfriend didn’t exist, but the pain he felt on Sept. 12 when he was told Kekua had died of cancer was real, the All-American told Katie Couric.
“What I went through was real. The feelings, the pain, the sorrow. That was all real,” Te’o said to Couric during his first on-camera interview, an excerpt of which aired on ABC’s Nightline early Thursday morning.
Te’o has said to both Couric and ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, who conducted an untelevised interview with the linebacker on Jan. 18, that he had no inkling of the true nature of his relationship with Kekua until Dec. 6, when the person going by that name called to say she was still alive.
Despite the December phone call, Te’o told Schaap he was not totally convinced that Kekua was a hoax until Jan. 16, when one of the alleged perpetrators of the scam, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, called him to confess and apologize.
The entire interview will air Thursday on Katie, Couric’s syndicated talk show.
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Source: Huffington Post
