Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter were headed to a basketball event when their helicopter crashed earlier this year, killing everyone on board.
Christmas has been different for everyone this year. While some were grateful that they could spend the special day with their loved ones, others were missing the people they lost in 2020 due to various reasons. Vanessa Bryant celebrated her first Christmas without her husband, Kobe Bryant, and daughter Gianna.
Remembering the departed, Vanessa shared a picture on her Instagram on Friday, December 25, where she is seen cuddling her three daughters 17-year-old Natalia, 4-year-old Bianka, and 1-year-old Capri. The next slide is an old picture of the family along with Kobe and Gianna. Vanessa captioned the sweet snap, "Always Together, Never Apart Together Forever In Our Hearts. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Kobe, Vanessa, Natalia, Gianna, Bianka, and Capri."
The Bryant family never forget to remember Kobe and Gianna no matter what the occasion might be. Vanessa shared some glimpses of their holidays on her social media as well. In a video on her Instagram stories, Vanessa revealed the stockings labeled with the names of Kobe and Gianna, atop the family's fireplace, according to People. In another story, Vanessa is displaying a Christmas gift to Bianka gifted by Khloe Kardashian.
The gingerbread house had the names of the family members. The right side of the gingerbread house had Kobe and Gianna's name as well. The front of the house read, The Bryant Family. Thanking Kardashian, Vanessa said, "Khloe, thank you so much, it's beautiful. I love it," as per ET Online.
The basketball legend and Gianna were among the nine victims who were killed in a helicopter crash that took place on January 26, 2020, in Calabasas, California. According to CNN, Kobe and Gianna were headed to the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a basketball game where the 13-year-old was supposed to play and Kobe was expected to coach.
Recently, Vanessa came under the spotlight for a completely different reason. Her mother, Sofia Laine filed a lawsuit where she argued that she should be paid $5 million in back-pay for being her daughter's "longtime personal assistant and nanny" to her grandchildren. Laine also claimed that Kobe promised her to take care of her indefinitely.
"Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant's promise did not see the light of day as he is now deceased and Vanessa Bryant took each and every step she could to void and cancel all of Kobe's promises," she claimed in the 48-page lawsuit, according to BBC.
The legal action received a lot of backlash from people as it came just 8 months after the tragic loss of the 41-year-old legendary sportsman and his daughter. Vanessa too had a few words for her mother, where she denied Laine's claims of being the nanny of the Bryant kids and her personal assistant, as per LA Times.
She said that her 68-year-old mother was trying to “extort a financial windfall from our family.” She also said that Kobe and she helped Laine financially. They even let her live in one of their properties. “She was a grandmother who was supported by me and her son-in-law at my request,” she added. “She now wants to back charge me $96 per hour for supposedly working 12 hours a day for 18 years for watching her grandchildren. In reality, she only occasionally babysat my older girls when they were toddlers.”
Keeping all of it aside, Vanessa seems to have found a silver lining and celebrate Christmas with her girls while remembering Kobe and Gianna.
References:
https://people.com/sports/vanessa-bryant-marks-first-christmas-after-deaths-kobe-gianna/
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/26/us/calabasas-helicopter-crash-trnd/index.html
