UPDATE: Katie Couric will have the first sit down, on camera interview with Manti Te'o and his parents that will air on Thursday on her syndicated show 'Katie' ABC NEWS

Manti Te'o had a two and a half hour sit down interview with Jeremy Schapp from ESPN and denies ANY and ALL involvement in the dead girlfriend hoax. Manti said that he 'tailored' his stories about his hoax girlfriend 'Lennay Kekua' to make people think he 'met her before she passed away'. 

Te'o also said he didn't know for sure 100% that his girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" never existed until Wednesday. On Wednesday he received a direct message on Twitter from Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who Deadspin.com first reported as being behind the hoax. Te'o eventually called Ronaiah and he came clean that him and two other people were involved in the hoax.

Manti did say he lied to his father about having met Kekua, because his father then went to tell reporters how the two met before. He also said he tried to speak with Kekua via Skype and FaceTime on several occasions, but had technical problems and couldn't see her in the little box

A lot more details from the interview over at ESPN.com. 

As soon as we saw ESPN post this exchange (5:40 in the video above)....that's about when we just gave up on this....