All About Laughs
Vanessa Bryant, widow of the late Kobe Bryant, is dealing with a different kind of family tragedy in the wake of losing her husband. The mother of 4 is currently embroiled in a nasty legal battle against her own mother Sofia Laine, 68, one that’s growing worst and worst with every headline.
People Magazine originally reported that Bryant and her mother were at odds. In December, they stated that Vanessa Bryant was accusing her mother of trying to “extort a financial windfall” from her family after husband Kobe Bryant’s untimely death through a new lawsuit. In said lawsuit, Laine claimed that she’d worked unpaid for Bryant as a “longtime personal assistant and nanny.” Laine added in the lawsuit that before Kobe’s death in January, he had “promised to take care of” his mother-in-law “for the rest of her life.”
Reports state that Bryant has supported her mother for over the last 20 years. She told People Magazine that for that “Nearly 20 years, she was never my or Kobe’s personal assistant, nor was she a nanny. For nearly two decades, we arranged for my mother to live in our nearby properties, at no cost to her because she had claimed that she didn’t have any money to buy her own home after her divorce. My husband and I felt it was best for her not to live in our home. She watched our girls from time to time, just like most grandparents do. She did not take care of business issues or expenses.”
Laine did an interview with Spanish language network Univision with reporter Dave Valdez of El Gorda y La Flaca. There she told them Bryant kicked her out right after Kobe’s death, demanding her keys and her car immediately.
Bryant was livid following the interview and said in another statement “My husband and daughter passed away unexpectedly, and yet my mother had the audacity to do a television interview speaking negatively of me while shedding tears for a car and a house that were not in her name,” she said. “She has removed all her diamond jewelry, emptied the apartment I provided, and put away the furniture to make it look like she doesn’t have my support. My husband and I have supported her financially for the past 20 years, and continue to do so, in addition to her monthly alimony.”
Happy Monday to everyone besides Vanessa Bryant’s mom 😊💛
— ♡ cierra. (@xocierraa) March 29, 2021
Vanessa Bryant adds that Laine is “now trying to get more money than my husband and I ever spent to provide for her while he was alive.” She also criticizes the lawsuit as “frivolous, disgraceful and unimaginably hurtful.”
“She has no regard for how this is affecting my children and me,” she says, claiming, “She wants to live off of my daughters and me for the rest of her life while continuing to collect monthly alimony from her ex-husband since 2004. My husband and I have never discouraged or kept her from providing for herself.”
Vanessa Bryant is using her mom’s prior testimony against her to invalidate a lawsuit claiming Kobe Bryant “promised” her lifetime support.
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) March 29, 2021
“Even after that betrayal, I was willing to provide … support for the rest of her life … wasn’t good enough.”https://t.co/Im2GbunSd5
