Vanessa Bryant Says She Has Been Threatened Online to Have Kobe Crash Photos Leaked

In a court filing obtained by The Washington Post, Vanessa Bryant, the wife of the late Kobe Bryant, says she has been “taunted online by people threatening to leak the photos or posting fake images of my husband’s dead body.” Her husband and daughter, Gianna, died in a January 2020 helicopter crash. 

Bryant has alleged that sheriff's deputies and firefighters took unauthorized photos of the crash site and has since been involved with several legal battles related to the tragic crash. She is suing Los Angeles County for invasion of privacy. 

In the filing, Bryant said she has seen one photo that was alleged to be the remains of her husband. 

“Since viewing the photo, I’ve been tormented with thoughts of who took it and whether it depicts my husband," she said in the filing, per the Post.

Additionally, a document filed by her attorney Luis Li on her behalf alleges "close-up photos of Gianna and Kobe’s remains were passed around [to] at least 28 LASD devices and by at least a dozen firefighters.

“The gratuitous sharing continued in the following days and weeks and included such outrageous conduct as flaunting the photos in a bar while pantomiming dismemberment and showing off the photos over cocktails at an awards gala," the statement read, according to the Post. "One deputy guffawed while sharing the photos; another described the crash victims’ remains as ‘hamburger’ and ‘piles of meat.’”

In March, it was reported by the Los Angeles Times that Bryant was able to obtain the names of four sheriff's deputies who allegedly shared photos from the crash site.  

“These deputies and firefighters took the worst thing that has ever happened to me — the worst thing that could happen to any mother or spouse — and made it worse,” she stated in the filing. “I will never be able to shake the anguish from knowing that the officials who are supposed to keep us safe treated Kobe and Gianna with such callous disrespect. For the rest of my life, one of two things will happen: either close-up photos of my husband’s and daughter’s bodies will go viral online, or I will continue to live in fear of that happening.”