The 11 Fishiest Quotes From Manti Te’o’s September Interview About His Fake Girlfriend

He didn’t know what her major was?

Sports Illustrated writer Pete Thamel interviewed Manti Te’o back in September about his dead girlfriend. Today, Thamel released the whole transcript of the Lennay Kakua sections of that interview. Te’o’s answers seem a little…fishy.

1. According to Te’o the way he met Lennay was “just ummm” “kind of regular.”

2. According to Te’o, Lennay was awake to write him letters but not to read them to him.

3. Te’o dodges a question about what she studied, isn’t sure about the year she graduated, and then can’t say for sure what her major was when Thamel follows up.

4. Te’o isn’t sure where she worked. He says that he “think[s]” she worked at a construction company. And that she “took up the mantle” when her father died, despite the fact that her father didn’t own the company — he just worked there.

5. Te’o dodges a question about where she’s from.

6. Te’o says that he talked to her all night (that he’d sleep with his phone out and her on the other end) starting when she got in her accident, despite the fact that the accident put her in a coma.

7. Te’o claimed he didn’t know the details of his girlfriend’s death. She didn’t “die” in a secret op in Afghanistan, she “died” in a hospital in California. How would he not know the details?

8. He also claimed to not know the details of her injuries after her car accident.

9. Te’o claims that they were about to pull the plug when a doctor came in and “saw something” that made him think they should do another treatment that would save her life, and then it worked! Only for her to later get leukemia! Is this TV?

10. When asked if she was buried in California, Te’o doesn’t say the name of a cemetery or even directly answer the question. He just says “she was always in California.”

11. Here Te’o just parrots back what Thamel asks him, and does so in a way that sounds totally made up. “At 9 they closed the casket and stuff like that.”

BONUS WEIRDNESS: The Notre Dame team chaplain Father Paul Doyle is really wishy-washy on everything about Lennay. Four straight sentences begin, “I think…” “I think…” “He might…” “That sounds vaguely familiar…”

12.

LINK

Read the whole transcript over at Sports Illustrated.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com