Tragic Details About Kobe Bryant's Daughter, Natalia
In January 2020, Kobe Bryant's private helicopter crashed in Calabasas, California, tragically killing him, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant, and seven others. While unanswered questions remain about the crash, the basketball legend's family has been trying to heal and move on. That includes his wife, Vanessa Bryant, and their three other daughters, Natalia, Bianka, and Capri Bryant. As Natalia, the eldest, told Teen Vogue in 2021, "He was just like the best girl dad ever," and, not surprisingly, her life hasn't been the same since. However, she's still managed to thrive. Taking to Instagram following their first holiday without Kobe and Gigi, Natalia told followers (via Hola!), they were leaning on each other to get through the pain. "The most important thing is to surround yourself with a small circle of people you trust and to be able to express your feelings with them, when you are sad or not feeling well," she wrote.
It seems to have worked. Since then, Natalia has grown up into a successful young woman. In 2021, she signed with IMG Models and also enrolled at the University of Southern California to study film. In 2023, she interned for Beyoncé's Parkwood Entertainment, and, as she told Town & Country in 2024, she loves balancing fashion with Hollywood. "I think it's fun to have my foot in both worlds," she enthused. "They're both collaborative, and you meet so many different people." Even so, heartbreak remains a palpable part of her everyday life. These are the tragic details about Natalia Bryant.
Kobe and Gianna's deaths rocked Natalia's world
Natalia Bryant lost her father and sister just a week after her 17th birthday, and the teen was forced to grow up fast. In addition to managing her own personal grief, she had to be strong for her two younger sisters, Bianka and Capri. As mom Vanessa Bryant told People in 2021, she rose to the challenge. Calling her eldest "a wonderful big sister and an incredible daughter," she gushed about how extremely proud she was of Natalia. "On top of her own grief, she has balanced her senior year of high school, applying to colleges, nurturing her sisters, and just recently signing her own modeling contract with IMG," she said. However, as Natalia told Teen Vogue that same year, it wasn't easy. "You do the best that you can," she mused. "[For] my little sisters [we're] trying to keep that memory for them."
As for herself, she turned to her friends, mentors, and, of course, her family for strength. "My mom and my sisters are amazing, and I can always lean on them for support," she told Elle in 2023. She also drew courage and inspiration from her late father's Mamba Mentality. "I want to make sure that mentality stays intact because it can be so easy to give up on yourself when things get tough," she explained. "You have to remind yourself that with positivity and resilience you can do anything."
Healing was made harder by her dad's fame
Kobe Bryant's family was flooded with a massive outpouring of love following the basketball great's death and, yet, all of that public support came with a dark side. As Vanessa Bryant explained in an Instagram Story in June 2020 (via MailOnline), she and Natalia Bryant had to block a slew of fan accounts because they were being inundated with photos of Kobe and Gianna, which served as a painful reminder of their loss. "Blocking the fan pages has helped change the algorithm," she explained, noting they also had to make their accounts private. Natalia further added that seeing so many images of her late father and sister "makes it 10x harder to deal with our loss."
Since then, they've both returned to social media and found ways to cope with their grief. For Natalia, that meant focusing on the positive. "I bring myself out of tough times by focusing my energy on the things that bring me happiness," she told Elle in 2023. "I spend time with the people I love, like my family, I hang out with my friends, or listen to my favorite music." In time, she's even come to enjoy the public memorials. "I love seeing the murals," she told Town & Country in 2024. "They feel like special gems." What's more, she told Teen Vogue, "It's bittersweet, but I enjoy talking about him more than it's sad for me."
Natalia was forced to miss Kobe's Hall of Fame induction ceremony
In what feels like a truly cruel twist of fate, Natalia Bryant's senior prom fell on the exact same night as her father's induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. As Vanessa Bryant revealed on Instagram, she tried to make light of the situation by sharing her own prom fail with Natalia. "When I was a senior in high school, Kobe and I were engaged and he had a playoff game the night of my prom," she recalled. She ended up skipping it and turned it into a joke for her eldest daughter. "I looked at Natalia and said, 'Well, if it's any consolation, daddy kept me from going to my prom, so it's only right that he tried to keep you from going to yours,'" she quipped. "Of course we laughed because even in heaven, he's still trying to make moves and keep the boys away."
In reality, the conflicting schedule forced Natalia to make a difficult choice. In the end, though, while she missed Kobe's Hall of Fame induction ceremony in May 2021, she did get to be a part of it. The night before her prom, Natalia flew to Connecticut to accept her father's Hall of Fame jacket, then flew right back to Los Angeles so she wouldn't miss her own personal milestone. Explaining the decision on Instagram, Vanessa told fans, "Natalia's experienced so much loss, I couldn't let her miss out on her once in a lifetime opportunity to go to her senior prom."
She had an injury eerily similar to her dad's
Natalia Bryant was reminded of her late father during a vacation, which was actually meant to help her forget about her loss. It was December 2020, and the family had just spent their first holiday season with Kobe and Gianna Bryant. They decided to go on a post-Christmas ski trip, but the fun soon turned to pain when Natalia suffered a freak injury that was eerily similar to one of her father's. As Vanessa Bryant shared in a clip posted to Instagram (via Us Weekly), Natalia appeared to have sprained her finger and her wrist while on the slopes, although she didn't seem too fussed about it. "This is payback for making fun of daddy's fingers," Vanessa joked. "I was waiting for that [Gary] Vitti finger pull, so I tried to distract her."
Vanessa was referencing one of the last injuries her late husband experienced before his retirement. It happened during a 2016 Los Angeles Lakers game against the San Antonio Spurs when Kobe dislocated his right middle finger, and longtime Lakers trainer Gary Vitti immediately popped it back into place. Kobe got back on the court without missing a beat, with Lakers coach Byron Scott musing, per ESPN, "He's a tough hombre." Judging by Natalia's calm reaction to her own sprain, she's inherited that toughness.
Natalia gave up her pro sports dreams after Kobe's death
Natalia Bryant may never have followed in her dad's footsteps (she hates basketball because it involves too much running), but she did have her sights set on a pro sports career. As she told Teen Vogue in 2021, she fell in love with volleyball when she was just nine years old. "It was the London Olympics," she recalled. "My mom took me to watch Misty May play beach volleyball," and she was smitten. Vanessa Bryant thought it would be a great way for her daughter to become confident in her height, and it was. Natalia was soon playing varsity volleyball for her high school and she was all in. "I've always been very competitive," she mused. "I think it's the way my parents raised me to be competitive."
She was also a regular at USC volleyball games – many of which she attended with her father – and planned to keep playing once she became a college student herself. "I played club volleyball with the intention of becoming a D1 athlete," she shared. However, Kobe Bryant's death changed all that. Once she arrived at the University of Southern California in 2021 (where she's majoring in film), Natalia decided to take a break. "I quit volleyball after the accident because I was so ..." she began. "A lot was going on at that time."
Natalia feared for her life because of a scary stalker
As if she hadn't been through enough, Natalia Bryant was the victim of a scary stalking incident that began shortly after her father's death. A 30-year-old Dwayne Kemp started sending messages to a 17-year-old Natalia in 2020 and never stopped. In 2022, she sought a restraining order after Kemp went offline and showed up at the University of Southern California campus looking for her twice. According to court documents seen by TMZ, Kemp allegedly thought he had a romantic relationship with Natalia, even though she never answered him. During her testimony in court, Natalia said she feared for her safety after he showed up at her sorority, and then at one of her classes. "He wanted to make love to me," she said, per NBC Los Angeles. "He wanted to be together." As for why she didn't block him, she said she feared that would make him angry. For his part, Kemp said it was all a misunderstanding. "I give flowers to females all the time, and it works," he argued. "If I would've been blocked, I would've known right then and there that she wasn't interested."
Even so, a judge concluded Natalia was in real danger, especially because Kemp was a gun enthusiast who'd been arrested at least four times. He was ordered to stay 200 yards away from her for three years, stop all contact, and get rid of all his firearms.