This is a bizarre story.

Ryan Lochte denies lying about being held at gunpoint during a robbery at the Rio Olympics last Sunday, telling Matt Lauer that isn't something he would joke about. "I wouldn't make up a story like this nor would the others. As a matter of fact, we all feel it makes us look bad. We're victims in this and we're happy that we're safe," he told Lauer during a phone interview on Wednesday. Brazilian authorities, however, aren't so sure.

Judge Keyla Blank ordered Lochte and the guys he was with the night of the alleged incident to have their passports seized and remain in Brazil for questioning, but Lochte had already caught a flight to the US. Fellow swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz remain in the country after being removed from a flight bound for the US on Wednesday. Authorities initially became suspicious of the story when all four men involved had inconsistencies in their recollection of events.

One of the guys claimed they left a party at 4am, which is when they claimed the robbery occurred, while security footage shows them partying till dawn. Lochte claimed they were approached by one armed man, while one of his pals said there were "several."

The biggest detail that Lochte has changed? He initially claimed the robber, posing as police, cocked a gun and put it to his forehead, but now he's saying the suspect simply "pointed it in his direction." He also claimed that the robber pulled over the taxi he was riding in, and now he says the group was stopped at a gas station when it all went down. Not only that, but police still haven't been able to locate the alleged robbers, or the taxi driver the Olympians claim to have been riding with.

So what would Lochte's motivation be to lie? Apparently, the famous swimmers got into an altercation at the gas station, and the robbery was a way of distracting from that story. Lochte and his group reportedly stopped to use the bathroom, and were allegedly wasted and urinating outside the facilities before breaking down the bathroom door. A manager for the gas station stopped them and asked them to pay for the damages, but maintains there was no forceful use of a weapon. So basically, Lochte damaged property and was forced to pay for it, and then spun it into a robbery.

This does seem a little fishy...