Vanessa Bryant recalls first meeting with late hubby Kobe Bryant in anniversary tribute

To honor her late husband, Vanessa Bryant has begun reminiscing about the early days of her relationship with Kobe Bryant. On the evening of Monday, November 27, the model cum philanthropist took to her Instagram to post a throwback photo of the Bryant couple’s first encounter, to commemorate its 24th anniversary.

Simply captioned, “24 years ago.... Day 1. #1999 11/27/99,” along with a crown and a heart emoji, the photo featured a young Kobe dressed in a gray sports sweatshirt, with black stripes on its sleeves. He had his arms round a snuggled up, vivacious Vanessa, who wore a pink mesh crop top, blue denims, and was simply dolled up in the 90s makeup fashion, with bleached blonde waves.

The two had met on the set of a music video during the NBA star's brief musical stint, when Kobe was 20, and Vanessa, then 17, a dancer. In his 2015 documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse, the athlete talked about their initial encounter. “It was a two-day video shoot, and I was always looking for her. Like, I wanted to know where she was.”

The NBA legend continued, “I would finish a take and then go to my trailer, but I’d wonder where she is the entire time and then come out of the trailer and just want to talk to her some more in between takes and stuff like that. And she wrote her phone number down at the time when you had to still write phone numbers down, and I called her the very next day. We talked for hours.”

Sadly, the Los Angeles Lakers star player and his daughter Gianna perished in January 2020, when the helicopter carrying them and seven other passengers crashed in Calabasas, California. There were no survivors. Kobe Bryant is survived by his wife Vanessa, and his daughters Natalia, Bianka, and Capri, who miss and continue to honor their beloved patriarch.