ET can confirm that Vanessa Bryant has settled a lawsuit filed by her mother, Sofia Laine.
Vanessa Bryant has settled a lawsuit filed by her mother, Sofia Laine, ET can confirm. While the terms of the settlement are private, the case is over.
In December, ET obtained court documents filed in Orange County Superior Court stating that Sofia was suing Vanessa and the Kobe Bryant Trust for financial support, claiming the legendary NBA star "promised to take care" of her "for the rest of her life" prior to his death.
"Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant's promises did not see the light of day as he is now deceased, and Vanessa Bryant took each and every step she could to void and cancel all of Kobe Bryant's promises made to Plaintiff," Sofia alleged in the docs. "Vanessa Bryant did not intend to honor any of the Bryants' representations, agreements and promises at any stage. Kobe Bryant died on January 26, 2020.”
According to the docs, Sofia also claims that she worked unpaid as a "longtime personal assistant and nanny" for the family, also made up of Vanessa and Kobe's three other children, Natalia, 18, Bianka, 4, and Capri, 2.
Vanessa called the lawsuit "disgraceful and unimaginably hurtful" in a statement shared with ET at the time, and claimed her mother was trying to "extort a financial windfall from" her family following the tragic death of her husband and 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant.
"My mother is continuing to try and find ways to extort a financial windfall from our family. I have supported her for nearly twenty years, and she was never my or Kobe's personal assistant, nor was she a nanny," read her statement. "I have always been a stay-at-home mother and my husband and I were our daughter's full-time caregivers. For nearly two decades, we arranged for my mother to live in our nearby properties, at no cost to her because she had claimed that she didn't have any money to buy her own home after her divorce. My husband and I felt it was best for her not to live in our home. She watched our girls from time to time, just like most grandparents do. She did not take care of business issues or expenses. She was a grandmother who was supported by me and her son-in-law at my request."
"She now wants to back charge me $96 per hour for supposedly working 12 hours a day for 18 years for watching her grandchildren. In reality, she only occasionally babysat my older girls when they were toddlers," Vanessa continued. "As of ten years ago, our kids were full time students and athletes and I didn't have another child until 2016. Her claims are obviously false but I still tried, repeatedly, to work things out with my mother."
"Because I did not give in to her hurtful threats and monetary requests, she has spiraled out of control and is making false and absurd claims. She is now trying to get more money than my husband and I ever spent to provide for her while he was alive," she concluded in the statement. "She has no regard for how this is affecting my children and me. She wants to live off of my daughters and me for the rest of her life while continuing to collect monthly alimony from her ex-husband since 2004. My husband and I have never discouraged or kept her from providing for herself. This lawsuit is frivolous, disgraceful, and unimaginably hurtful. My husband never promised my mother anything, and he would be so disappointed in her behavior and lack of empathy."
For more on Vanessa and her daughters, watch the video below.
RELATED CONTENT
