Kobe Bryant and Vanessa's 20-year marriage survived the turbulence of infidelity, miscarriage and divorce
The world was shocked earlier today with the tragic news that basketball legend Kobe Bryant had passed away following a helicopter crash that also claimed the life of his 13-year-old daughter Gianna.
While initial fears were that the rest of his family may have been aboard the doomed helicopter, it was later confirmed that his wife Vanessa and his three other children Natalia, Bianka, and Capri were safe.
The legend's death has, without a doubt, left many in the basketballing world devastated, though it will be Vanessa who now faces the daunting prospect of living a life without a man she was married to for the better part of two decades.
Together, they had weathered tragedy, family dysfunction, a seemingly inevitable divorce, and a host of other hurdles, before coming through it all stronger than ever. They had welcomed their youngest, Capri, into the world a little over half a year ago. Theirs is an incredible story, by all accounts, and the fact they managed to not only maintain but strengthen their relationship is a testament to their resilience.
Vanessa had met Bryant in November 1999 when she was just 17 and working as a background dancer on The Eastsidiaz music video "G'd Up". He was 21 and in the building to work on his debut musical album, and the pair hit it off immediately. Six months later, they were engaged, with Vanessa still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach.
To avoid media scrutiny over their relationship, Vanessa had to finish high school through independent study, following which she got married to Bryant at the St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church.
Despite Bryant's meteoric rise in the NBA around that time, there was no prenuptial agreement, with Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine stating it was because he "loved her too much for one".
But that didn't stop the naysayers, including his own parents and sisters. His wedding was not attended by his family, or his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or even his Laker teammates.
Bryant's parents were said to be against it because they believed he was getting married too young, and that too to a woman who was not African-American. The disagreement resulted in an estrangement that lasted for two years until the couple's first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003.
The first test of the marriage came soon after. In the summer of the same year, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection to a sexual assault investigation involving a 19-year-old employee of The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera who had alleged that he had raped her.
He admitted to a sexual encounter but denied the sexual assault allegation, and the case was eventually dropped in September 2004 after the victim refused to testify. Bryant later apologized for his actions and settled with the accuser privately in a separate civil suit, and his marriage to Vanessa survived.
However, there was another tragedy waiting for them on the horizon. In the spring of 2005, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage because of ectopic pregnancy -- a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus. Luckily, she recovered and gave birth to their second daughter, Gianna, in May 2006.
Vanessa has always been a private person, and not one to revel in the limelight, which is why it came as a surprise when it was revealed in December 2011 that she had filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences".
But just as they had on previous occasions, the couple managed to work through their problems once again. A little over a year after the divorce papers were filed, Bryant and his wife both announced on social media that they had called the divorce off.
Bryant retired from the NBA as of its greatest and most-decorated players ever and was putting in more time towards his family when the news of his death broke. At the time of the crash, he had been taking Gianna to the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a basketball game where she was supposed to play and he was supposed to coach.
Hundreds of celebrities and tens of thousands of fans have taken to social media to pay tribute to a man who has been not just a legendary basketball player, but also an inspiration to millions. Expect his name to echo across basketball courts across the country in the weeks to come.