Vanessa Bryant, wife of the late basketball star Kobe Bryant, called out Evan Rachel Wood for a tweet that resurfaced, in which the actress called the basketball player a “rapist.”
Kobe and his 13-year-old daughter Giana Bryant, passed away in January 2020 due to a helicopter crash. On the day of their passing, Wood tweeted, “What has happened is tragic. I am heartbroken for Kobe’s family. He was a sports hero. He was also a rapist. And all of these truths can exist simultaneously.”
While the tweet has since been removed, along with Wood’s entire Twitter account, Vanessa had just recently discovered the tweet.
She took to Instagram on Feb. 27 and wrote, “Your false, insensitive, defamatory and slanderous tweet on 1/26/20 is vile and disturbing to say the least. Behavior like this is part of the reason why innocent black men go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. An accusation doesn’t make someone guilty. YOU DON’T KNOW THE FACTS OF THE CASE.”
vanessa bryant is going OFF rn and i love it pic.twitter.com/OxQSZ0cShL
— dani | she/her (@3Mjsdani) February 27, 2021
Vanessa also spoke out against producer Abigail Disney. Three days after the passing of Giana and Kobe, Disney tweeted, “I haven’t said anything about Kobe so far because I felt some time needed to pass before weighing in. But yes, it’s time for the sledgehammer to come out. The man was a rapist. Deal with it.”
While Disney did not respond to Vanessa’s comment, Wood subliminally did. She posted numerous quotes to her Instagram story that contain the words, “don’t take it personally.”
While Vanessa was not tagged in the posts, it was apparent that they were aimed at her. Vanessa responded by posting her own subliminal quotes, telling the actress to not be disrespectful.
Evan Rachel Wood and Vanessa Bryant via Instagram stories today 👀 pic.twitter.com/LveOZmFyCN
— G (@mizzvino) February 28, 2021
In their tweets, Wood and Disney reference rape allegations made against Kobe in 2003. He had an affair with a 19-year-old woman who claimed their sexual encounters were non-consensual. The basketball player originally denied the claims that he slept with the woman, but later confirmed it was true and consensual.
He was charged with sexual assault, but the charges were dropped in 2004 after the woman refused to testify. Kobe apologized to the woman and said, “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view the incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter,” he said in a statement at the time.
After the passing of Kobe and Giana, photos of the crash site were leaked by responding deputies Vanessa is currently fighting for the names of deputies involved to be released. She feels not releasing the names is a double standard, “Anyone else facing these allegations would be unprotected, named and released to the public.”
Since the passing of Kobe and Giana, Vanessa has done all that she can to honor and respect her late husband and daughter.
