• Crystal Mangum has admitted that she made up allegations that three former Duke University lacrosse players raped her in 2006
• Mangum made the confession during an appearance on the US show Let’s talk to Kat Podcast
• “I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God,” Mangum said, adding that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans “didn’t deserve” what they gave them had done

The woman who falsely accused three former Duke University lacrosse players of raping her at a party nearly 20 years ago has admitted she lied about the allegations.

Crystal Mangum, a former exotic dancer, made the confession during an appearance on the US television series Let’s talk to Kat Podcast, hosted by Katerena DePasquale, and asked for forgiveness from the players she accused – Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans.

The episode, which was released on Wednesday, December 11, according to the campus newspaper Duke Chroniclewas admitted to the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women on November 13th. According to the outlet, Mangum is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her then-boyfriend in 2013.

During the recording, Mangum explained that she has no regrets and “everything is done to get everyone to the point where they are, it’s all to show God’s love and His forgiveness,” before saying that she denied the allegations about the rape I made up in 2006.

“I am a living witness of God’s forgiveness,” Mangum said. “That evening, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans took me into their home and trusted me. The Bible says that you should not harm your neighbor who lives next to you in confidence. They were my brothers and they trusted me not to betray their trust and I testified falsely against them by saying they raped me when they didn’t. And that was wrong and I betrayed the trust of many other people who believed in me.”

“I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God, and that was wrong even though God already loved me the way I was,” Mangum continued. “I didn’t need to get confirmation from him because I already had it, I just didn’t know and I hurt my brothers.”

Mangum then asked Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans for forgiveness.

“I want them to know that I love them and that they don’t deserve this and I hope they can forgive me,” she added. “And I hope that they can heal and trust God and know that God loves them.”

Until now, Mangum had never publicly stated that she had made up the allegations.

In her 2008 book Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story“I will never say that nothing at all happened that night,” Mangum wrote Duke Chronicle.

According to the medium, in her response to DePasquale’s request for an interview, Mangum expressed her desire to apologize to the players. “It is important to me to publicly apologize for the Duke lacrosse case,” Mangum wrote in a letter to DePasquale obtained by the outlet. “I actually lied about the incident to the public, to my family, to my friends and to God about it and I’m not proud of it.”

As previously reported by PEOPLE in 2006, Mangum, then a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, told police she was attacked by the three men — who were 20, 19 and 23 at the time — in the bathroom at a Duke lacrosse team party on March 13th that she was hired for.

As local media outlet WRAL reported, citing court documents, Mangum initially told police in Durham, N.C., that she was trapped in a bathroom in the early morning hours of March 14, 2006, and was raped, sodomized and beaten for 30 minutes .

Based on Mangum’s allegations at the time, Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans were each charged with multiple crimes, including rape. No DNA from the players was found on or in the accuser’s body, and ultimately Mangum’s report was debunked and prosecutors ultimately declared the players innocent.

After the case against the players failed, Mike Nifong, the district attorney who originally prosecuted the players, was disbarred in 2007 for unethical behavior, including withholding exculpatory evidence and inflammatory public statements.

The Associated Press reports that Mangum’s mental stability has been questioned.

Want to stay up to date with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Per Duke ChronicleCooper did not charge Mangum with perjury after the case was dismissed. He said at the time that investigators thought “she may have actually believed the many different stories she told.”

After their lawsuit was dismissed in April 2007, Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans sued former university president Richard Brodheads and the university, according to the outlet. The case resulted in an undisclosed settlement.

The North Carolina Department of Corrections website lists Mangum’s expected release date as February 27, 2026, according to WRAL.