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Te’o tells Couric he briefly lied about girlfriend

Humiliated football star Manti Te’o insisted he had no choice but to keep lying about his phony gal pal — even after she called him from the virtual grave and revealed the huge hoax.

The Notre Dame great repeated his version of the wild tale, telling Katie Couric about a Dec. 6 phone call from the woman he knew as Lennay Kekua, the girlfriend who he had told the world had died of cancer on Sept. 12.

Kekua never existed and her phony death — in addition to the real passing of Teo’s grandmother a day before — became the emotional narrative of Notre Dame’s great football season.

Even after the call, Te’o said he had to keep talking up Lennay in interviews, leading up to Notre Dame’s national championship game on Jan. 7

“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 told Couric, in his first on-camera interview that’s set to air tomorrow.

Segments of Couric’s chat with the Heisman Trophy runner-up and his parents aired on “Good Morning America” today.

“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.

Even though Lennay’s widely reported death was once a PR boon for the now-humiliated grid star, dad Brian Te’o said his son didn’t lie for publicity.

Manti Te’o has admitted he never met Lennay in person and “tailored” remarkable details about his fake girlfriend that he fed to fans.

Te’o and his family, before Dec. 6, had spoken at length about the couple’s romantic vacations in Hawaii and dreamy, first meeting after the 2009 Notre Dame-Stanford football game.

“People can speculate about what they think he is. I’ve known him 21 years of his life. And he’s not a liar. He’s a kid,” Brian Te’o said with tears in his eyes.

Even though the gal pal he called “Lala” turned out to be completely bogus, Te’o said the moment of her staged death felt “real.”

“What I went through was real. You know the feelings, the pain, the sorrow, that was all real and that’s something that I can’t fake,” he said.

The hoax, first reported a week ago today by sports Web site Deadspin, has been traced to Te’o acquaintance Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a Christian musician from Southern California.

Tuiasosopo used the picture of a former high school classmate for the hoax, without telling her.

That pretty face of Lennay, Los Angeles marketing executive Diane O’Meara, said her head is still spinning from her unwitting role in the scam.

“Even today, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. I mean, I have my own boyfriend of five years, committed relationship, so to hear that you’re the face of a separate relationship, it’s hard to see,” O’Meara told NBC’s “Today” show.

O’Meara said she identifies with Te’o, as a hoax victim who feels “the same emotions: frustration, anger, confusion.”

O’Meara said she gave Tuiasosopo a picture of herself after he reached her via Facebook and spun a tale about his cousin’s poor health.

“We’re raised to have a kind heart,” she said. “He repeatedly reached out to me on Facebook. And I almost felt guilty not sending a photo with this sign for this photo slideshow.

“He went as far as sending me a photo of his cousin with head trauma, bandages in the hospital. Out of the kindness of my heart, I thought I was just comforting somebody that I knew of.”

Tuiasosopo has not yet commented publicly about his role in the Te’o hoax.

Although Tuiasosopo never played big-time college or pro football, he comes from a long line of grid greats. Dad Titus Tuiasosopo played at USC and is now is the pastor of Oasis Christian Church of the Antelope Valley in Lancaster, Calif.

With Post Wire Services