Manti Te’o to Katie Couric: Lennay Came Out of Her Fake Coma While On the Phone with Me
[There was a video here]
In Manti Te'o's first televised interview since the news broke that his dead girlfriend story from last season was just a story, Te'o told Katie Couric that he did in fact lie about how much he knew to save himself the embarrassment. But still, the the 21-year-old Notre Dame senior told Katie that he had believed the fictional Lennay Kekua had "come out of her coma" while she was on the phone with him:
Obviously it was just breathing at first and it was one of those where she was just breathing and.. uhh... then she started to kinda whisper my name.
In this version of the story, Te'o called Kekua's phone only to have someone else answer, and then have that someone actually lay the phone down next to her comatose body while Manti talked himself to sleep. And not only did he fall for it, he truly believed he had helped her:
I jumped for joy, you know: 'she's out,' 'shes talking...' And I was like 'see they were right, I do help her.'
If only she was the one who actually needed help.