Kobe Bryant revealed in March 2019 that his wife, Vanessa Bryant, wanted to have a son following their four daughters’ births.
“I think she wants a boy more than I do,” the late NBA player, 41, who died tragically in a helicopter accident on Sunday, January 26, told Extra at the time. “I love having girls — I’m super, super excited about that. She is as well. She wanted a boy so he can be mama’s boy forever — that sort of thing. We’ll see if I can deliver, I don’t know.”
The athlete added, “She’s like, ‘You go see if you can hit a clutch shot. You gave me all girls, let’s see if you can bring a boy!’ Nope, not yet. We’ll see.”
The Olympic basketball player and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were killed in the chopper accident on Sunday along with the helicopter’s seven other passengers. The late father-daughter pair are survived by Vanessa, 37, Natalia, 17, Bianka, 3, and Capri, 7 months.
The California native and Kobe welcomed baby No. 4 in June. “Our baby girl is here,” Vanessa wrote on Instagram. “Capri Kobe Bryant. So thankful for our newest baby blessing.”
The couple’s baby news came five months after the late Los Angeles Lakers player’s pregnancy announcement on social media. “Vanessa and I are beyond excited to announce that we are expecting another #mambacita to go along with Natalia, Gianna and Bianka,” the Philadelphia native wrote in January. “New Year, New Baby! Baby Mamba on the Way 2019.”
Kobe loved life with his four “princesses” and even started using helicopters frequently as a way to spend more time with them during his 20-season NBA career. He explained to Alex Rodriguez and Dan “Big Cat” Katz in December 2018: “I was sitting in traffic and wound up missing, like, the school play because I was sitting in traffic. These things just kept mounting. And I had to figure out a way where I could still train and focus on the craft, but still not compromise family time. That’s when I looked into helicopters to be able to get down and back in 15 minutes, and that’s how it started. So my routine was always the same. Weights early in the morning, kids to school, fly down, practice like crazy, do my extra work, media, everything I needed to do, fly back, get back in the carpool line, pick my kids up.”
While Vanessa offered to get the girls instead, the Wizenard Series: Training Camp creator explained his decision to turn her down. “I was like, ‘No, no, no, I want to do that,’” Kobe said. “You have road trips and times when you don’t see your kids, so every chance I get to see them and spend time with them, even if it’s 20 minutes in a car, I want that.”
