Gianni Bryant, Kobe Bryant

Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant died three months before her 14th birthday. She and her father Kobe Bean Bryant, 41, a basketball legend, were killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Los Angeles, California, United States on January 26, 2020.

Kobe was supposed to accompany Gianni that day in her basketball practice in the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California. Unfortunately, before reaching their destination, the private helicopter they were traveling in crashed and burst into flames amid foggy conditions in the hills above Calabasas.

Including Kobe and Gianni, all of the nine people on board did not survive the accident. The other seven were Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli, 56, his wife Keri Altobelli and their daughter Alyssa Altobelli, Harbor Day School  assistant girls basketball coach Christina Mauser, Sarah Chester and her daughter Payton Chester and their pilot Ara Zobayan.

Alyssa and Gianni were teammates at the Mamba Sports Academy where they were coached by Kobe. Know more about the NBA legend’s daughter here:

1. She was born on May 1, 2006 in Los Angeles to Kobe and Vanessa Laine Bryant, 37.
2. She had one older sister named Natalia Diamante Bryant, 17.
3. She had two younger sisters Bianka Bella, 3, and Capri Kobe, who was born on June 20, 2019..
4. She had her sights set on playing college basketball at the University of Connecticut in Mansfield, Connecticut, USA.
5. It was her dream to play in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
6. She was a big fan of WNBA star Gabby Williams, 23, who has been playing for the Chicago Sky since 2018.
7. Since she decided she wanted to follow her father’s footsteps, she would practice 2 hours a day.
8. She was present during her father’s final game on April 13, 2016 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles where the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz 101-96.
9. Her father had been coaching her Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team since 2017.
10. Her nickname was Gigi but she was fondly called Mambacita by the fans of her father, who was known as the Black Mamba.
11. On December 30, 2019, her father filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, seeking ownership of the word mark Mambacita.
12. In 2018, her father posted on Instagram a video of her playing basketball and it went viral.
13. A video of her father explaining to her the game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Atlanta Hawks on December 21, 2019 went viral.