Manti Te'o cracks joke about infamous catfishing incident

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Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself, and that's what Manti Te'o did.

The former Notre Dame football standout was a Heisman Trophy candidate who became one of the faces of football because of an off-the-field story.

He had found out that his girlfriend and grandmother had died within a 24-hour span of one another.

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Former Notre Dame Fighting Irish player Manti Te'o waves to fans during the second half against the California Golden Bears at Notre Dame Stadium Sept. 17, 2022, in South Bend, Ind. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

However, he later learned that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never actually existed.

Eventually, Te'o found out he had been catfished. He had instead been communicating with a man pretending to be Kekua in an online relationship.

The story took on a life of its own, and the incident was recently featured in a Netflix documentary.

So, when he made his NFL Network debut this week, he cracked a joke about it.

Former Notre Dame player Manti Te'o enters the stadium before a game between Notre Dame and California in South Bend, Ind., Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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"I haven't Googled myself since 2013, for obvious reasons," Te'o said, prompting laughter from his co-hosts.

Te'o is hoping to rewrite his story just a bit.

"There are so many people that reached out to me, all over the world, that said, ‘Hey listen, your story really impacted me,'" Te’o said on the broadcast. "Now, that put a responsibility on me to say … not everybody knows the truth. Not