Vanessa Bryant is commemorating a special anniversary. Bryant took to Instagram on Sunday to post a heartbreaking video of her late husband Kobe Bryant gleefully celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2009 NBA Championship victory.
The short video shows Kobe excitedly screaming after leading the team to their Game 5 win over the Orlando Magic, and his tearful post-game interview in which he’s holding his daughter, Gianna, who was 3 at the time.
In the video, Kobe gets emotional while talking to reporters about the “long journey” to the championships and the sacrifices he’s made to get there, before his wife gives him a celebratory kiss. The video concludes with his bold, prophetic declaration of “on to the next one.”
“11 years ago today,” Bryant captioned the video of Kobe and Gianna — who died, along with seven others, in a tragic helicopter crash on Jan. 26. “Hard to watch without it crushing my soul but so thankful we have these videos to look back on when we feel the time is right.”
As Kobe boldly predicted, the Lakers would go on to win the championship the following year after battling it out with the Boston Celtics to a Game 7 victory, the last championship the team has won to date. The 10th anniversary of that iconic moment of Bryant’s career is June 17.
Bryant’s post comes one day after she posted a message to fans on her Instagram story in which she shared why she and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalia, have had to block fan pages on the platform.
As Bryant explained, it’s been “ready hard” for her and Natalia to constantly see images of her late husband and their daughter.
“Thx so much of all the ?,” she began. “@nataliabryant and I have unfortunately had to block fan pages because it’s been really hard to go online and constantly see pics of our beloved Gigi and Kobe under every single square of our explore pages. Blocking the fan pages has helped change the algorithm.”
“We ? you all but please understand that we had to do this for our own healing not because we don’t appreciate your ?,” she added
Bryant has been open with fans about how she and her family have grieved following Kobe and Gigi’s deaths. Last week, she showed off her new permanent tributes to her late husband and daughter: tattoos of messages they’d shared with her. She got Gigi’s message tattooed on her wrist, and Kobe’s on her neck.
