Kobe Bryant’s heartbroken widow Vanessa is trying her hardest to stay strong for her remaining three daughters after the death of her husband and daughter.
Both Kobe, 41, and daughter Gianna, 13, were among eight killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, leaving behind Vanessa and their three daughters Natalia, 17, Bianka, three, and Capri, seven months.
While Vanessa tries to piece her life back together after the heartbreaking deaths, she is trying to stay strong for the sake of the rest of her family.
But it’s reported she is struggling to even speak without crying at the moment.
A source told People: “It’s an extremely difficult and devastating time for Vanessa and the whole family.”
Another source added Vanessa is “devastated: and can “hardly keep it together.”
They added: “She can’t finish a sentence without crying.
“But she is working very hard to pull it together for the other girls.
“She now has to be the strong one.”
Vanessa and Kobe were childhood sweethearts and married in 2001 when he was 22 and she was 18.
People also reported that the couple had a deal never to fly in a helicopter together, just in case the worst should happen.
A source said Kobe only ever used Ara Zobayan as a pilot, who was killed alongside the basketball star in Sunday’s crash.
Kobe had previously spoken about his helicopter use, saying that he looked to the skies while playing for Los Angeles Lakers, to avoid the traffic of the often gridlocked city.
Speaking to Alex Rodriguez in 2018, Kobe said: “I was sitting in traffic and I wound up missing like a school play.
“I had to figure out a way where I could still train and focus on the craft but still not compromise family time.
“So that’s when I looked into helicopters, to be able to get down and back in 15 minutes and that’s when it started.”
Kobe was heading to Kobe’s Mamba Sports Academy for a youth basketball match with his daughter Gianna, along with mother and daughter Sarah and Payton Chester, girls’ basketball coach Christina Mauser, college baseball coach Joh Altobelli and his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa, when the helicopter came down during foggy conditions in the Calabasas mountains.
