VAN NUYS, Calif. – Following weeks of denial, male porn star Edmond Cetera has admitted he was indeed a place kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs for three years during the late 90s. Cetera said he now “greatly regrets” that period in his life, but he has “risen above and overcome.”

“I apologize to family, friends, fans, fluffers and colleagues for my deception and the prior life-choices which led me down the wrong path, straight into the shameful life of a backup NFL place kicker,” Cetera said in a statement released Friday afternoon. “I had hoped to keep this dark chapter of my past private, but I should have realized this would be impossible in the age of social media.”

Cetera was outed on Twitter by a user identified only by the screen name “FukFanatic55.”

“Female pronstars beware,” FukFanatic55 tweeted, along with a link to a still of Cetera on the set of This Ain’t Just Another Super Hero Vampire Teen Movie Vol. #7. “This Cetera dood used to was nfl player, so be sure to not accept candy, or ride in elevators w/ him!”

Initially, Cetera denied being Ken Walkowiak, backup kicker for the Chiefs from 1997 through 1999, tweeting: “WTF? Dude doesn’t even look like me. Nice try, hater55 or whatevs your name. Welcome to my blocked list, btw!”

Fukfanatic55 didn’t back off, instead posting additional photo evidence, including a picture of Cetera hugging his then-coach, Marty Schottenheimer, after kicking a field goal that drew the chiefs within seven points of the Pittsburgh Steelers, thereby beating the 8.5-point spread.

The final straw came when Cetera’s ex-wife, Cynthia Lawson, began tweeting confirmation of fukfanatic55’s claim.

“It tru,” Lawson tweeted April 11. “Might have a respectable job in porn now, but “Ed” used to ride the pines behind Pete Stoyanovich! LOLOLOLOL”

In an exclusive phone interview, Cetera, the 2012 AVN Award winner for Best Supporting Actor in a DP Scene, told YNOT he’s both “humiliated and somewhat relieved” his troubled past has come to light.

“Look, nobody wants to be outed as a former NFL player, especially with everything that has happened in the last year, with all the domestic violence, child abuse and check-kiting we’ve heard about involving NFL players,” Cetera said. “But at the same time, I’ve been living a lie for a long time now, and it’s kind of a weight off my shoulders to have everybody know about my past.”

Whether his industry peers will accept Cetera back into the fold, however, might be another story.

“To be honest, I’m completely shocked and totally disappointed right now,” said Manuel Labor, who was Cetera’s co-star in his award winning DP scene. “This revelation has me asking a lot of questions. For instance, how am I supposed to be comfortable when performing naked around someone who has shown such open hostility toward balls in the past?”

Other performers appear to be more forgiving, though, including his frequent on-screen partner Sasha McTush.

“Whatever Ed might have done, kicked, strangled or snorted in the past doesn’t concern me at all,” McTush said. “All I know is these days he’s the perfect gentleman. Even when he’s balls-deep in your ass, everything out of his mouth is please, thank you and excuse me, can I cum on your face now, ma’am?”

Cetera’s agent, Mack Spoogler, said he had no idea Cetera was once an NFL player, although he added “in retrospect there were some signs I probably should have picked up on.”

“One day on the set, he experienced a problem keeping wood, and he was pacing around repeating something like ‘this is just like that time against the Jets,’” Spoogler said. “It made absolutely no sense to me at the time, so I figured he was just high on Oxy again, but looking back on it, I’m pretty sure he was talking about missing the game-tying kick back in November of ’98.”

Cetera told YNOT he plans to continue performing, but he might take a break to “let things blow over a bit.”

“I’d like to think people in this industry are more open-minded than the general public and would understand the past is the past and I’m a changed man now,” Cetera said. “At the same time, I know some things are just really hard for people to forgive — and, quite understandably, being an NFL kicker is one of those things.”

Cetera said between the end of his NFL career in 1999 and his first appearance in a porn movie (2004’s Buttfucked Bifocal Bitches Vol. #87), he “worked a series of dead-end jobs, like real estate and food service” before an old friend turned him on to the opportunity to work in porn.

On his old friend’s advice, rather than reveal his football-playing past, Cetera claimed on his resume he’d spent the previous 15 years cleaning horse dung out of stalls at Santa Anita Park.

“He was a lot savvier than I was,” Cetera said of his unidentified porn industry sherpa. “He understood nobody was going to hire an ex-kicker, even one with a 10-inch penis. A guy who used to shovel around piles of horseshit, on the other hand, is someone on whom you know you can depend.”

Representatives from Irritable Angel, the studio behind Cetera’s latest movie — This Most Likely Is Not Divergent XXX — did not respond to YNOT’s request for comment.