I don’t even know how to explain this one, and I won’t even make a feeble attempt at humor, so I’ll just direct you to this story the Star Advertiser just dropped:

Manti Te’o has told family and friends that the woman who was the voice of his fictitious girlfriend “Lennay Kekua” called him in December and said she had to fake her own death months earlier to elude drug dealers, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has learned.

The woman, who has yet to be identified, tried to re-engage a relationship with Te‘o months after she supposedly had died of leukemia in early September, the Notre Dame All-American linebacker has told the people close to him. The account was shared with the Star-Advertiser by a source close to the Te‘o family.

According to the account, Te’o asked the woman to transmit a photo to him with a date stamp, which she did, but this did not allay his suspicions and he later told his family and Notre Dame officials about being scammed.

The good news here is that after getting played for at least nine months – or up to three years of missed meetings, lengthy phone calls, countless texts – Te’o finally decided that this cockamamie drug dealer story was hogwash, and decided to come clean to his parents and later, the school, that his internet girlfriend story might have been a little bit … fake.

Next question: Uh, if you got this call Dec. 6th, what took you 20 days to notify coaches and school? [Star Advertiser]