Manti Te'o broke his silence late Friday night when the Notre Dame All-American linebacker agreed to an off-camera interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap to address the dead girlfriend hoax.

Te'o said he formed a romatic relationship with a woman named Lennay Kekua, and that his girlfriend died in September just hours after his grandmother.

Te'o spoke with Schaap in Florida, where he is training for the NFL draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton. Te'o was accompanied by a lawyer during the interview, according to a photo David Scott, director of communications for ESPN's news content, posted on his Twitter account.

Te'o told Schaap he was not involved in the hoax and didn't make anything up to improve his Heisman Trophy candidacy.

"I wasn't faking it. I wasn't part of this," Te'o told Schaap in a portion of the interview posted on ESPN's website. "When (people) hear the facts, they'll know. They'll know that there is no way that I could be part of this."

ESPN planned to broadcast portions of the interview later on SportsCenter.