Inside the Relationship Timeline of Kobe Bryant and Vanessa Laine Bryant

Before his tragic and untimely death in a January 2020 helicopter crash, Kobe Bryant was more than just a legendary basketball player, he was also a loving husband to his wife Vanessa Bryant, and a doting father to their four children. Let’s take a look back at their romance.

Throughout their nearly 20-year marriage, Kobe and Vanessa frequently spoke about their relationship and their love story, as they quickly became a power couple.

In 1999, Vanessa was cast in Kobe’s music video for a song on his one and only hip-hop album. Sparks flew between the couple instantly and six months later, they were engaged to be married. Their small wedding happened on April 18, 2001, in Dana Point, Calif.

“It was a two-day video shoot, and I was always looking for her, like I wanted to know where she was,” Kobe said of meeting Vanessa in the documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse. I would finish a take and go to my trailer but I would wonder where she was the entire time. Then I would come out of the trailer and just wanted to talk to her some more, in between takes and stuff like that.”

Elsewhere in the documentary, the five-time NBA champion also revealed that he and Vanessa also nodded over being Disney fanatics.

“She was just beautiful. We literally did everything together. Everything together. And I thought I was a big dork because I loved Disneyland,” Kobe said. “I loved the Disney movies and things like that, but I never really had a chance to go to the park much. She was a big Disney fan, too, and we used to hang out at Disneyland, we used to go to Magic Mountain, she became my best friend.”

“We decided to get married, I proposed and she said yes. We’re both so young, right?” Kobe continued. “We’d wake up and do what kids do. I’d take her to the batting cage, go hit some balls, we’d play miniature golf, go to the movies, go out to eat, it was just a beautiful time, man.”

On Jan. 19, 2003, Kobe and Vanessa welcomed their first child, eldest daughter Natalia. Three years later on May 1, 2006, their daughter Gianna was born.

Ten years passed before the couple had another child, but on Dec. 5, 2016, they welcomed daughter Bianca. Six months before the deaths of Kobe and Gianna, Vanessa gave birth to the couple’s fourth daughter, Capri on June 20, 2019.

Kobe always made it known how proud he was to have all daughters and be a girl dad. “My friends say, ‘It takes a real man to make a boy,’” he said in an interview before his death, according to People. “I’m like, ‘Dude, it takes a king to make a princess ... Get in line.’ It’s pretty cool for me ’cause it’s Daddy’s little princesses.”