US swimmer Ryan Lochte said he overexaggerated what happened at a Rio gas station, while acknowledging his "immature behavior" got him and three teammates into trouble in the final days of the Olympics.

"It's how you want to make it look," Lochte said in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer that aired in the US on Saturday.

He also gave an interview to Brazil's main broadcaster Globo to apologize for his actions and said he regretted how the incident had tarnished Rio and the last week of the Olympics. "Brazil doesn't deserve that," Lochte told the Globo interviewer.