LOS ANGELES, CA – DECEMBER 18: Kobe Bryant poses with his family at halftime after both his #8 and #24 Los Angeles Lakers jerseys are retired at Staples Center on December 18, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.
Kobe Bryant lived a very controversial life, and his passing was no less so.
The former Los Angeles Lakers superstar died along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and several others in a helicopter crash in January 2020, leaving his wife and two other daughters to mourn.
According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, Bryant’s mother-in-law Sofia Urbieta Laine sued her daughter with claims she worked as an unpaid “personal assistant and nanny” for several years as Kobe had promised to take care of her for the rest of her life before his untimely demise.
On this day in 2008, Kobe Bryant threw it off the glass to himself. pic.twitter.com/J9oZmCOnSJ
— NBA History (@NBAHistory) May 9, 2023
A 48-page suit cited by the aforementioned publication stated that Vanessa Bryant tried as best she could to cancel all of Kobe’s agreements.
“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,” it reads.
Vanessa, in turn, insisted her mother was trying to extort the Bryant family on the back of steady financial support and their allowing her to live in one of their properties free of charge.
“She was a grandmother who was supported by me and her son-in-law at my request,” Bryant’s widow explained. “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.”
Vanessa noted she was a stay-at-home mother while the children were either at school or taking part in extra-curricular activities, so her mother’s claims were obviously false.
She also revealed that her relationship with her mother went sour after she made a gesture that was publicly spurned, with Sofia accusing her of throwing her out of her home and making her return a luxury car.
Vanessa Bryant on IG ❤️ pic.twitter.com/tExxqDqwHQ
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 1, 2023
“Earlier this year, I was looking for a new home for her and, a week later, she went on television and gave an interview disparaging our family and making false accusations while living rent-free in a gated apartment complex in Newport Coast,” she remarked.
Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.
