In an interview two years later, Stephen fondly said Vanessa was “very sweet as a child”. Ahead of the ceremony, Vanessa and Kobe famously didn’t sign a prenup. And Stephen later told the LA Times that his stepdaughter had said Kobe didn’t want such an agreement because “he loved her too much”. The couple shared four children over the course of their wedding. Their first daughter, Natalia Diamante Bryant, was born on January 19, 2003. Although Vanessa Bryant, the late Kobe Bryant’s wife, has spent years in the spotlight, little is known about her private life.
There were no survivors and while the cause of the crash is murky, it’s alleged that the pilot was disoriented by weather conditions. Almost a month to the day later, Kobe, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were killed in a tragic helicopter accident in Calabasas. Nine people, including Kobe, Gianna and the pilot, died in the crash. Very famously, https://yourhookupguide.com/headero-review/ Kobe presented Vanessa with an 8-carat, $4 million purple diamond ring days after being charged. It was dubbed the “apology ring”—though PEOPLE reported the basketball player had commissioned the 8-carat purple diamond before charges were announced. They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward Roman Catholic Church in Dana Point, California.
At the time, Kobe said, “I didn’t force her to do anything against her will. I’m innocent…I sit here in front of you guys, furious at myself, disgusted at myself for making the mistake of adultery. And I love my wife with all my heart.” In two decades of knowing each other, Vanessa stood by her man’s side, cheered him to five national championships as a Laker, and even supported him during the sexual assault allegations he faced after their first daughter was born. Bryant was forced to share the role of the Lakers’ star player with his popular and talented teammate Shaquille O’Neal. The two had an uneasy relationship, but they found success under the leadership of Phil Jackson, who became coach of the Lakers in 1999.
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So it’s no surprise as to why Vanessa prizes her privacy to such a degree, having had enough of strangers’ opinions to last a lifetime back when she first married Kobe and again when she chose to stay with him when their marriage was on rockier footing. These days, the commenting function on her Instagram account is turned off, the O.C. Lakers owner Jeannie Buss, who’d known Kobe since he was a teenager and Gianna her whole life, and team executive Rob Pelinka, Kobe’s longtime best friend and former agent, as well as Gianna’s godfather, were among her first visitors. It’s hard to say whether Vanessa would have since attended a game at Staples Center or made any other more prominent appearances, but the suspension of the NBA season from March 11 until July, when teams resumed play in the Orlando bubble, answered that question. Six months after she started dating Kobe, he proposed to her with a diamond ring and they got married in 2001. In 2003, the couple welcomed their first daughter with the second following three years later, in 2006.
There was talk of resolving the dissolution in private, but it wasn’t too much later that rumors of a reconciliation began to percolate. A fan started a petition to honor Kobe Bryant by altering the NBA logo to feature the late Lakers star. By all appearances, he was smitten with Vanessa Laine, sending roses to the school office and picking her up after classes. The couple announced their engagement around the time of her 18th birthday and were married at a Catholic church in April 2001. In those early days, much was made of his lineage, the fact that father Joe “Jellybean” Bryant had played eight years in the NBA and had moved the family overseas while he played for a time in Italy. It was December 2017, more than a year after Kobe Bryant had retired from basketball, and the Lakers great was expounding upon a fundamental truth of parenthood.
April 2001
But things took a distinct turn for the worse on June 30, 2003, when Bryant checked into the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Edwards, Colorado, while in town for a knee operation at a nearby clinic. He had arrived at the hotel late, and a 19-year-old hotel clerk escorted him to his room. Bryant asked for a private tour of the hotel, which she granted, showing him the pool, jacuzzi and spa, before returning to his room to talk. According to an interview later given to the Eagle County Sheriff’s office, laid out in detail by The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern, when the 19-year-old stood up to leave, Bryant asked her to give him a hug and began to kiss her. She went on to allege that Bryant started groping her, pulling at her clothes, and choking her. Not long after the wedding, Vanessa’s mom and stepdad split in a bitter divorce, threatening to erode their relationship with their daughter, which already may have been strained by her newfound wealth.
In 2006, the couple started the VIVO foundation which is now called The Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping youth and families in need both int he U.S. and abroad, according to the foundation’s site. Following this, Bryant bought Vanessa a US$4-million, eight-carat purple diamond ring, reported the Los Angeles Times. Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna was among the victims, along with seven others.
Vanessa was in the audience along with Derek Fisher, Kobe’s former teammate. The two were indulging in a casual conversation, and the fans and media made a big deal about it. However, the rumors were put to bed, as Derek was married recently to Gloria Govan. After she spends the last 3 years mourning the loss of her husband, fans have started to wonder who will Vanessa date or is already dating. Vanessa stood by Kobe for more than 2 decades, there were rumors that she was dating a professional boxer, Victor Ortiz. The most recent rumor is that Vanessa is dating former Los Angeles Lakers and teammate of Kobe, Derek Fisher.
“We are completely devastated by the sudden loss of my adoring husband, Kobe — the amazing father of our children; and my beautiful, sweet Gianna — a loving, thoughtful, and wonderful daughter, and amazing sister to Natalia, Bianka, and Capri,” she wrote in part. Kobe and Vanessa Bryant were never shy about posting supportive photos and bragging about their kids on social media. Despite a lot of privacy regarding the actual day of the wedding, Vanessa and Kobe Bryant always publicly honored their anniversary with sweet photos on Instagram. At age 20, Kobe was already playing with the Los Angeles Lakers, his lifetime team, when he met Vanessa who was 17 years old. The two met on the set of the music video for Tha Eastsidaz’s “G’d up” in 1999. (At the time, Vanessa, nee Vanessa Urbieta Cornejo Laine, and Kobe claimed it was love at first sight.) “It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes a person the one for you, but you just know,” the late Bryant told MTV News.
Vanessa Bryant became famous after the sad death of her husband, Kobe Bryant, and daughter, Gigi. Since then, people have become more interested in her life and even wonder about her ethnicity. Even though his wife offered to pick the girls up, Bryant insisted on doing it himself, simply because there were times that he wouldn’t be able to at all. “Because you have road trips and times when you don’t see your kids, so every chance I get to see them and spend time with them, even if it’s 20 minutes in the car, I want that,” he said. Even with the Bryants’ agreement to never travel via helicopter together, traveling this way was extremely common for the 41-year-old dad, dating back at least a decade. USA Today notes that another reason he preferred to hop in a huey was because sitting in a car for a few hours, fighting L.A.
The video of Kobe’s touching relationship advice was posted on Jan. 9, 2020. Less than two weeks later, he and his daughter Gianna died, leaving Vanessa alone with their other three daughters. The proximity of the video to his death was noticed by fans and many returned to it in grief. One person commented, “Only Kobe would use the word ‘competitiveness’ to describe how he keeps his marriage when it’s tough — ‘we are going to succeed!’ Fascinating!” Indeed it was. Despite the apparent equanimity between Vanessa and Kobe Bryant from the outside, the couple shocked fans by announcing their divorce in December 2011.
(The Lakers were ultimately the eighth and final playoff seed that season and were swept in their first series.) He returned to the court in December 2013 but played in just six games before fracturing his kneecap and missing the remainder of that season as well. Bryant returned for the beginning of the 2014–15 season before he was again injured, tearing his rotator cuff in January 2015. He played almost all of the following season but again struggled, with a career-low .358 shooting percentage while averaging 17.6 points per game, and he retired following the last regular-season game of the 2015–16 season. After winning their third title in 2002, Bryant and the Lakers encountered difficulties. In the 2003 playoffs the Lakers were defeated in the second round.