Vanessa Bryant Reflects on First Meeting Late Husband Kobe Bryant _ E! News

Transcript

00:00 Vanessa Bryan is looking back on her love story with the late Kobe Bryan.

00:05 The wife of the Lakers legend marks the anniversary of when they met by sharing

00:09 their first photo together on Instagram. She captures the image 24 years ago, day one.

00:16 In the 2015 documentary, Kobe Bryan's Muse, the athlete reflected on meeting Vanessa on a music

00:22 video set in 1999, back when he was pursuing a music career before reaching basketball stardom.

00:30 "For those that don't know, yes, I had a budding music career as a rapper. It didn't last long,

00:39 but I did make a video. And on the video set is where I first met Vanessa."

00:51 "Vanessa. Hi."

00:53 "Two-day video shoot. And I was always looking for her. I wanted to know where she was.

00:58 And I would finish a take and then go to my trailer, but I wonder where she is the entire

01:03 time and then come out of the trailer and just want to talk to her some more in between takes

01:07 and stuff like that. And she wrote a phone number down at the time where you had to still write

01:11 phone numbers down. And I called her the very next day and we talked for hours."

01:17 Over the years, Kobe and Vanessa, who tied the knot in 2001 and shared daughters Natalia, Gianna,

01:24 Bianca, and Capri, continued to celebrate the anniversary of their first meeting. In fact,

01:29 they would often go to one of their early date spots, Disneyland. The late athlete captioned

01:34 his photo at the time, "On this day 20 years ago, I met my best friend. I decided to take

01:40 her on a date to Disneyland tonight to celebrate old school style." Months later, in January 2020,

01:47 Kobe and Gianna were tragically killed in a helicopter crash along with seven others.

01:53 And since their passing, Vanessa and her children continue to honor their legacies.

01:57 In December of 2020, Vanessa posted a series of images of her late husband and daughter

02:03 with the caption, "My gorgeous Gigi and handsome boo boo. Mamba Sita and Black Mamba forever."

02:14 (upbeat music)

02:17 (upbeat music)