Te’o tells Couric he briefly lied about girlfriend

— Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o has told Katie Couric that he briefly lied about his online girlfriend after discovering she didn’t exist, while maintaining that he had no part in creating the hoax.

Pressed by Couric to admit that he was in on the deception, Te’o said he believed that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, had died of cancer and didn’t lie about it until December.

“Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12,” Te’o said in an interview to air Thursday on Couric’s syndicated talk show. A segment of the interview with Te’o and his parents was broadcast Wednesday on Good Morning America.

The Heisman Trophy runner-up said he only learned of the hoax when he received a phone call in December from a woman saying she was Kekua.

“Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she’s alive and then I’m going be put on national TV two days later. And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?” Te’o said.

An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 10.

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AP

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2013, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o answers a question during media day for the BCS national championship NCAA college football game in Miami. The wrenching story of Te'o's girlfriend dying of leukemia _ a loss he said inspired him to play his best all the way to the BCS championship _ was dismissed by the school Wednesday, Jan. 16, as a hoax perpetrated against the linebacker. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

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