Last night in an off-camera interview, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o spoke to ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap about the Lennay Kekua hoax. The interview went over two hours and details of Te’o’s story began coming out around midnight.
Te’o denied having any role in the hoax -- Kekua, Te’o’s girlfriend, supposedly passed away last September only to suddenly and surprisingly re-emerge in Te’o’s life on Dec. 6 through a phone call -- but did admit he tailored the story of his relationship with Kekua to suggest that they had met in person when in fact they had not.
The interview left plenty of questions unanswered and definitely raised quite a few more. The few facts that this bizarre story does have are still convoluted.
ESPN posted an edited transcript of the conversation. You can view it HERE. It is far, far too long to even begin to try to break down. As with everything else in this story, we encourage you to read it and decide for yourself.
As a reference, here’s the original Deadspin story.
