VIDEO: Manti Te'o Says He's "Far From" Being Gay

Manti Te’o has denied speculation that the Lennay Kekua hoax, in which the Notre Dame star linebacker reportedly fell in love with a woman who he had never seen and who he believed had died of leukemia, was a cover-up for being gay.

“Are you gay?” Katie Couric asked Te’o matter-of-factly in an interview that aired Thursday on her daytime ABC show Katie.

“No,” Te’o replied with a chuckle. “Far from it. Far from it.”

Te’o told Couric that he chose to be in a long distance relationship over dating someone on campus because of his similarities with “Kekua”: she was Samoan like Te’o and was also heavily involved in church like Te’o, who is Mormon. Couric's extensive interview with Te'o explored much of this scandal.

Te’o’s ordeal has been complicated by the new and conflicting information that continues to be released. The latest point of contention centers around "Kekua's" voice. It was revealed on Thursday that the “woman” Te’o’ had been sharing long distance phone calls and late night Skype sessions with was not only not a real person, but also not a woman. The man behind the hoax, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, claimed that he was the one who had been talking to Te’o, and that he was disguising his voice to make it sound like a woman’s.

However, today family members of Tino Tuiasosopo, a woman in her 20s, said that she was the one speaking to Te’o the entire time, the New York Post reports.

Because of the duration of the relationship (Te’o said he and "Kekua" had been together since 2009), it’s possible that the voice was portrayed by multiple people. Check out this excerpt from one of the voicemails, from Deadspin, below and decide for yourself. —Hal Sundt