Vanessa Bryant was traveling in the sport utility vehicle with her sons, she said, when they came across the out-of-control vehicle involved in a fatal crash. At the scene of the accident, Bryant said, she pointed out the vehicle to a sheriff’s deputy: “I said, ‘This is my truck. This is my truck.’”
The deputy, she said, immediately offered to ensure that the crash site, a few miles north of L.A., would be better protected for the next time, she said.
“I was like, this isn’t safe,” Bryant, the wife of former Lakers and current Los Angeles Clippers guard Kobe Bryant, told ESPN. “He told me to come back in two weeks, and I’m like, no.”
Bryant’s story comes from a series of tweets posted by the former Lakers guard on Wednesday. In the initial post, Bryant wrote that he was trying to get back to Los Angeles in time for a gathering of family and friends, including his two young sons, but the accident made that impossible. “We just needed a moment,” Bryant wrote in his next tweet. “And now we need to make sure the best person is in charge. And best thing we can do is let that person take the wheel.”
Bryant’s account of the crash came amid the renewed focus on the family-friendly image of the city. Earlier this month, Los Angeles came under sharp criticism when President Donald Trump labeled rapper Meryl Streep “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.” Relatedly, Streep herself on Wednesday spoke out against the president.
