Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, turned 38 in early May and celebrated her birthday for the first time in many years without her husband. Basketball legend and his daughter Gianna were killed in a helicopter crash on January 26 this year, and since then, Vanessa has often shared family memories on Instagram.
Vanessa and Kobe met in 1999 when she was a guest on a video for the group, which then included Snoop Dogg. Bryant was trying to pursue a music career along with basketball at the time but failed. Still, he met his future wife then.
Vanessa was 17 and Kobe was 20. “She’d bring pictures of Kobe to school, and we’d all be like ‘Omygod!'”, Vanessa’s schoolmate said in a 2005 interview. They didn’t believe she was in a relationship with a famous basketball player.
After turning 18, Kobe and Vanessa got engaged and were married in April 2001. His parents were not at the wedding because they were against that marriage. The basketball player discovered a few years later that his father Joe opposed the relationship because she was of Latin American descent, not African American.
He had been arguing with his father from the very beginning of his relationship with Vanessa. Joe and Kobe Bryant were estranged for years because of this.
Just six months after Vanessa gave birth to daughter Natalia, Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. He later told on a news conference that there was no harassment, but the girl agreed to meet with him. Vanessa was by his side the whole time he was talking and holding his hand. In a statement, she pointed out that she was aware that they had to work on their marriage and that Kobe had made a mistake.
After that affair, she received an 8-carat ring with a purple diamond worth $ 4 million. Kobe’s wife had a miscarriage at the time, and they had a second daughter, Gianna, in 2006.
After ten years of marriage, Vanessa filed for divorce, and as the couple did not sign a prenuptial agreement, she was entitled to half of his fortune. However, they resolved their differences and announced two years later that they would stay together. Bianca Bryant was born in 2016, and in 2019 Vanessa gave birth to Capri.
Despite numerous problems, the couple stayed together until death separated them, that is, until a horrific accident in California earlier this year.
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