Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o revealed today that his late girlfriend really did exist but that she was, in fact, an inflatable vinyl doll.
"Yes, Lennay was different from other girls. She might have been vinyl and full of stale air, but, to me, she was the most exciting woman in the world," said Te'o softly, who added, "it was love at first sight," when he first saw her propped up against an old outboard motor at a Honolulu garage sale a few years ago.
"Then, in December," Te'o said tearfully, "she started getting smaller and smaller. Then she started wheezing from a slow leak around her nozzle, which drove the dog crazy. That's when I knew she wasn't well."
Te'o said the day he came home and found her "flat as a pancake" on the bathroom floor was the saddest day of his life.
Te'o said he was unable to revive her.
"I blew and I blew and I blew, but she just wouldn't inflate."