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UPDATE: Vanessa Bryant Breaks Silence With Statement, Photo Of Kobe Hugging Daughter Gianna

   DailyWire.com
Kobe Bryant (R) and Vanessa Laine Bryant attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

UPDATE: Vanessa Bryant released a statement late Wednesday night via her Instagram account, three days after a helicopter accident claimed the lives of her husband, basketball legend Kobe Bryant, their 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others.

Captioning a photo of the Bryant family, Vanessa thanked everyone for their prayers, which she said were much needed, and offered her deepest sympathies for the other families affected by the Sunday crash.

Here’s the post:

My girls and I want to thank the millions of people who’ve shown support and love during this horrific time. Thank you for all the prayers. We definitely need them. We are completely devastated by the sudden loss of my adoring husband, Kobe — the amazing father of our children; and my beautiful, sweet Gianna — a loving, thoughtful, and wonderful daughter, and amazing sister to Natalia, Bianka, and Capri.

We are also devastated for the families who lost their loved ones on Sunday, and we share in their grief intimately.

There aren’t enough words to describe our pain right now. I take comfort in knowing that Kobe and Gigi both knew that they were so deeply loved. We were so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives. I wish they were here with us forever. They were our beautiful blessings taken from us too soon.

I’m not sure what our lives hold beyond today, and it’s impossible to imagine life without them. But we wake up each day, trying to keep pushing because Kobe, and our baby girl, Gigi, are shining on us to light the way. Our love for them is endless — and that’s to say, immeasurable. I just wish I could hug them, kiss them and bless them. Have them here with us, forever.

Thank you for sharing your joy, your grief and your support with us. We ask that you grant us the respect and privacy we will need to navigate this new reality.

To honor our Team Mamba family, the Mamba Sports Foundation has set up the MambaOnThree Fund to help support the other families affected by this tragedy. To donate, please go to MambaOnThree.org.

To further Kobe and Gianna’s legacy in youth sports, please visit MambaSportsFoundation.org.

Thank you so much for lifting us up in your prayers, and for loving Kobe, Gigi, Natalia, Bianka, Capri and me. #Mamba#Mambacita #GirlsDad #DaddysGirls#Family ❤️

View this post on Instagram

My girls and I want to thank the millions of people who’ve shown support and love during this horrific time. Thank you for all the prayers. We definitely need them. We are completely devastated by the sudden loss of my adoring husband, Kobe — the amazing father of our children; and my beautiful, sweet Gianna — a loving, thoughtful, and wonderful daughter, and amazing sister to Natalia, Bianka, and Capri. We are also devastated for the families who lost their loved ones on Sunday, and we share in their grief intimately. There aren’t enough words to describe our pain right now. I take comfort in knowing that Kobe and Gigi both knew that they were so deeply loved. We were so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives. I wish they were here with us forever. They were our beautiful blessings taken from us too soon. I’m not sure what our lives hold beyond today, and it’s impossible to imagine life without them. But we wake up each day, trying to keep pushing because Kobe, and our baby girl, Gigi, are shining on us to light the way. Our love for them is endless — and that’s to say, immeasurable. I just wish I could hug them, kiss them and bless them. Have them here with us, forever. Thank you for sharing your joy, your grief and your support with us. We ask that you grant us the respect and privacy we will need to navigate this new reality. To honor our Team Mamba family, the Mamba Sports Foundation has set up the MambaOnThree Fund to help support the other families affected by this tragedy. To donate, please go to MambaOnThree.org. To further Kobe and Gianna’s legacy in youth sports, please visit MambaSportsFoundation.org. Thank you so much for lifting us up in your prayers, and for loving Kobe, Gigi, Natalia, Bianka, Capri and me. #Mamba #Mambacita #GirlsDad #DaddysGirls #Family ❤️

A post shared by Vanessa Bryant 🦋 (@vanessabryant) on

Original Story: 

Vanessa Bryant has yet to release a statement or speak publicly about the tragic death of her husband, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, and their daughter, 13-year-old Gianna.

However, on Wednesday, Vanessa changed her Instagram photo to a 2016 picture of her late husband embracing Gianna at a basketball game in Toronto.

Bryant is smiling and looking down at his daughter in the photo.

According to NBC News, Vanessa also changed her Instagram account from private to public the same day.

Bryant, Gianna, and seven others, including two of Gianna’s basketball teammates, died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. The group was heading to Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a basketball tournament.

The 41-year-old father of four coached Gianna’s team and affectionally called the young talent “Mambacita,” a play off his own nickname, “Black Mamba.”

“Vanessa is completely shocked and heartbroken but is trying to stay as strong as she can in front of her children,” according to source, Entertainment Tonight reported Wednesday. “Vanessa married Kobe when she was 18 and never expected to live her life without him, and that is going to take time.”

“She has been surrounded by her family and friends but she feels almost numb to everything,” the source added. “She is thankful for the outpouring of love her and her family has received and will respond when she’s ready. Right now she’s taking time to be with her girls.”

Shedding some light on Bryant as a father, SportsCenter anchor Elle Duncan shared her only in-person interaction with the former Laker to her audience on Monday, explaining that Bryant gushed about his children and being a father, or, more specifically, being a “girl dad.” The Daily Wire reported:

“I saw him and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Kobe,” Duncan shared Monday evening, according to E! News. “I’ve gotta get a picture for the ‘gram’ (Instagram). I didn’t get it for a few minutes because, as I approached him, he immediately commented on my rather large, eight month pregnant belly.”

Bryant peppered Duncan with excited questions about the unborn child. When she told him she was expecting a girl, Bryant high-fived her. “Girls are the best,” he told Duncan.

“I asked him for advice on raising girls, seeing as though he quite famously had three at the time and he said, ‘Just be grateful that you’ve been given that gift because girls are amazing,’” Duncan continued.

Asked if he and wife Vanessa Bryant were going to have more children, the basketball star continued to gush over his daughters and said he’d like “five more girls” if he could have them.

“He said that his wife Vanessa really wanted to try again for a boy but was sort of jokingly concerned that it would be another girl,” Duncan explained. “I was like, ‘Four girls, are you joking? Like, what would you think? How would you feel?’ And without hesitation he said, ‘I would have five more girls if I could.”

“I’m a girl dad,” Bryant proudly told her.

“When it came to sports, he said that his oldest daughter was an accomplished volleyball player and that the youngest was a toddler, so [to be determined],” Duncan said.

“But that middle one, he said, ‘That middle one was a monster. She’s a beast. She’s better than I was at her age. She’s got it.’ That middle one, of course, was Gigi.”

Gigi, short for Gianna, also perished in the helicopter accident on Sunday.

“When I reflect on this tragedy and that half an hour that I spent with Kobe Bryant two years ago,” Duncan concluded. “I suppose that the only small source of comfort for me is knowing that he died doing what he loved the most: Being a dad, being a girl dad.”

Bryant, Vanessa, and their four daughters were reportedly frequent parishioners at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church. Bryant, who was raised Catholic and had been baptized, attended church on the morning of the accident.

Father Steve Sallot, Kobe’s priest, said that the NBA legend stopped by Our Lady Queen before 7 a.m. to pray by himself.

“I saw him yesterday (Sunday) before the 7 a.m. mass,” Father Sallot told CBS2 News. “We chatted for a couple of minutes, and then he moved on, and obviously, he was going to the airport yesterday morning.”

“He was quite a man of faith,” the priest said of Kobe.

“We shook hands, and I saw that he had blessed himself because there was a little holy water on his forehead,” Father Sallot recalled. “So I knew that he’d gone into the chapel to pray and came out and blessed himself. And then we spoke for a minute, shook hands, and then off he went.”

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