Manti Te’o speaks: 'I wasn't faking it. I wasn’t part of this'

Manti Te’o speaks: 'I wasn't faking it. I wasn’t part of this'

Manti Te'o admits he misled people about having met the girlfriend who never existed, but says he was the victim of a cruel hoax and denies turned out to be an imaginary girlfriend, but says he was a victim of a cruel hoax and denied any involvement in the creation of the online phantom his fictitious online girlfriend.

Speaking for the first time since the bizarre story broke, the Notre Dame linebacker told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap he never duped anyone about his Internet beau and believed Lennay Kekua was real.

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“No. Never,” he told Schapp at the IMG Training Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he is preparing for the NFL draft.

“I wasn't faking it,” he added. “I wasn’t part of this.”

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In a 2 1/2-hour interview boiled down to a few riveting broadcast moments, Schaap described Te’o as incredibly believable.

“He had a full command of everything I posed,” Schaap said. “He seemed very comfortable in the chair.”

Te’o “met” Kekua on FaceBook in 2010, according to Schaap, and their relationship was casual until she told the star that she been in a car accident and a coma. From April until September, when the imaginary woman faked her death, the two “were inseparable by phone,” Schaap reported.

Te’o told Schapp he “tailored” his story give people, including his father, the impression he had met his girlfriend. That, he said, was his only fabrication.

Te’o also shot down allegations he used the news that his internet love died to help win his Heisman Trophy candidacy.

“When (people) hear the facts, they’ll know,” he said. “They’ll know that there is no way that I could be part of this.”

The denial came as it emerged Te’o’s imaginary girlfriend haunted the Notre Dame linebacker from beyond her nonexistent grave.

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The woman who provided the voice of the too-good-to-be-true gal pal called Te’o three months after her purported death to claim she had to fake her demise because she was hiding from drug dealers, Hawaiian news organizations reported Friday.

According to Schaap, until two days ago Te’o was still not sure he had been duped. Reality finally set in when the hoaxster, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, called Te’o and apologized.

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The bizarre December call was an apparent attempt to rekindle the relationship but finally convinced Te’o that his cyber romance was merely an embarrassing fraud, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported.

A source close to the Te’o family told the Hawaiian paper about the latest grotesque twist in the increasingly strange case of the All-American and his bogus belle.

The call apparently came while the Heisman Trophy finalist was in Florida for an ESPN awards show, the paper said.

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The revelation of the second scam try came as ESPN reported the suspected mastermind behind the Kekua persona delivered a teary confession of the cruel hoax to a friend in December.

Tuiasosopo admitted to a friend in December that he created the fictional Kekua to dupe the naive Golden Domer, a source close to the the friend told ESPN’s “Outside The Lines.”

“He told me that Manti was not involved at all; he was a victim,” the female friend told ESPN. “The girlfriend was a lie, the accident was a lie, the leukemia was a lie.”

The woman described Tuiasosopo as crying during their December conversation before conceding that he needed to come clean - though he still hasn't spoken publicly.

Fighting Irish captain Te’o, ignoring an increasing clamor, remained silent for a third day. But his Te’o’s irate uncle ripped Tuiasosopo as more details about the case leaked out:

• The All-American linebacker fell into the arms of an attractive, dark-haired student at another Indiana college in the weeks after Kekua’s “death,” according to TMZ.com. Alexandra del Pilar, 21, received leis from Te’o and hung them in her car.

• Te’o and his family planned to reveal the hoax this coming Monday, but were instead thunderstruck by the Wednesday exposé on Deadpsin.com.

• Tuiasosopo’s dad delivered a conciliatory Facebook message to the Te’o family, calling the athlete “an amazing role model for our youth.”

• Two people told ESPN that Tuiasosopo similarly scammed their cousin five years ago, posing online as a woman also named Lennay Kekua.

• Neighbors of Diane O’Meara, the California woman whose identity was stolen as part of the scam, expressed shock at her unwitting role in the mess.

• Alema Te’o, the linebacker’s uncle, blasted Ronaiah Tuiasosopo as a “sick shady character.”

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Former high school football star Tuiasosopo, 22, should face criminal charges for his lies, raged Alema Te’o during a Thursday radio interview on The Zone Sports Network.

Te’o’s uncle, Alema Te’o, said he met with Tuiasosopo before the Notre Dame-USC game in November and “smelled him as a bad rat from the get-go â€" and I’m not afraid to come out and say that.”

Tuiasosopo â€" who once tried out for “The Voice” â€" showed his high school acting chops as president of the drama club.

A photo surfaced on Deadpsin.com showing Manti Te’o with Tuiasosopo’s kid sister, Pookah, on the eve of the game against the Trojans.

Alema Te’o said his nephew remains badly shaken by the avalanche of bad publicity following Deadspin’s revelation that Kekua did not exist.

“Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is a liar, he concocted the whole thing,” said Teo. “He’s been lying every step of the way.”

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said the university is urging Te’o to publicly address the issue.

“We are certainly encouraging it to happen,” he said Friday on his weekly radio show. “We think it’s important, and we’d like to see it happen sooner than later.”

Notre Dame officials said their investigation of the case showed Te’o was a gullible victim of a perverse plot.

But the Irish say Te’o is now on his own after graduating early from the university in December. He has since signed with the high-powered Creative Artists Agency heading into the upcoming NFL draft.

It was unclear how the bizarre tale would affect Te’o’s NFL career, but the father of his suspected tormentor wished the 20-year-old star nothing but the best.

Titus Tuiasosopo, on his Facebook page, urged people to avoid judging anyone until all the facts are known.

“It is my hope and prayer that we allow the truth to take its course, wherever that may lead,” wrote the elder Tuiasosopo.

“My heart goes out to Manti ... Please allow this young man to pursue his dream without judgment,“ he said. A Palmdale, Calif., neighbor of the Tuiasosopo clan said the whole controversy was “just ridiculous.”

“I bet when you were a kid you made a phony phone call,” said Joe Pizzo, 50, who lives next-door. “He’s a great kid from a great family.”

In Lancaster, Calif., neighbors were amazed to see local girl O’Meara, 23, emerge as the “face” of the phon y girlfriend. A Facebook photo of O’Meara was used during the scam.

“She’s a really good girl from a good family,” said Joseph Straw, 58.

“It’s a shock she got dragged into this.”

O’Meara is considering possible legal action.

Teo’s tale of his girlfriend’s tragic death last year became a touchstone of the team’s undefeated regular season and showdown in the national championship game against Alabama.

But speculation about the unreal romance remained rampant without any word from Te’o or Tuiasosopo.

The suspect’s friend told ESPN that she and Tuiasosopo last spoke Wednesday as the scam became public knowledge â€" and tried fruitlessly to convince him to come clean.

lmcshane@nydailynews.com

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