Vanessa Bryant Released A Statement On The Death Of Kobe And Their Daughter Gianna 

It’s been four days since the horribly tragic helicopter crash in Calabasas that took the lives of 41-year-old Kobe Bryant, 13-year-old Gianna Bryant, John Altobelli, his wife Keri Altobelli, their 13-year-old daughter Alyssa Altobelli, Sarah Chester, her 13-year-old daughter Payton Chester, Christina Mauser, and the pilot Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was headed to Kobe’s Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks for a basketball practice for Gianna’s team. Alyssa and Payton were Gianna’s teammates, and Christina was their assistant coach. Since then, there’s been a billion stories about what happened (fog, the lack of a terrain warning system), and also tabloid stories about how Vanessa is doing for those who have the emotional awareness of a narcissistic rock and haven’t assumed that she’s doing not so fucking good.

Vanessa has done the impossible by either getting it together enough to write a statement or get it together enough to give her thoughts to someone who wrote a statement for her.

Vanessa’s Instagram page went private right after the crash, and yesterday, it went public again when she changed her profile pic to a picture of Kobe and Gianna, and also posted a message of thanks. On behalf of herself and her daughters, Vanessa thanked everyone who has given her family support, and also said that a fund has been set up to help the families of those who also died in the crash.

View this post on Instagram

My girls and I want to thank the millions of people who’ve shown support and love during this horrific time. Thank you for all the prayers. We definitely need them. 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. We are also devastated for the families who lost their loved ones on Sunday, and we share in their grief intimately. There aren’t enough words to describe our pain right now. I take comfort in knowing that Kobe and Gigi both knew that they were so deeply loved. We were so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives. I wish they were here with us forever. They were our beautiful blessings taken from us too soon. I’m not sure what our lives hold beyond today, and it’s impossible to imagine life without them. But we wake up each day, trying to keep pushing because Kobe, and our baby girl, Gigi, are shining on us to light the way. Our love for them is endless — and that’s to say, immeasurable. I just wish I could hug them, kiss them and bless them. Have them here with us, forever. Thank you for sharing your joy, your grief and your support with us. We ask that you grant us the respect and privacy we will need to navigate this new reality. To honor our Team Mamba family, the Mamba Sports Foundation has set up the MambaOnThree Fund to help support the other families affected by this tragedy. To donate, please go to MambaOnThree.org. To further Kobe and Gianna’s legacy in youth sports, please visit MambaSportsFoundation.org. Thank you so much for lifting us up in your prayers, and for loving Kobe, Gigi, Natalia, Bianka, Capri and me. #Mamba #Mambacita #GirlsDad #DaddysGirls #Family ❤️

A post shared by Vanessa Bryant 🦋 (@vanessabryant) on Jan 29, 2020 at 4:59pm PST

That post says there’s over 400,000 comments, but if you click over, the comments have been closed. That was every kind of a smart move, because we really don’t need to see Kylie Jenner slipping into the comments to once again show us that she’s an attention whore master at making a tragedy about her.

Pic: Wenn.com