By Larry Brown
Kobe Bryant opened up in an unprecedented way in his new documentary and even revealed that wife Vanessa suffered a miscarriage during his rape trial in 2004.
Bryant was investigated for sexual assault in 2003 after having sex with a woman who worked at the Colorado hotel where he was staying ahead of a procedure he was set to undergo on his knee. The charges against Bryant were dismissed in 2004 after the accuser said she would not testify, and the two later settled a civil suit.
In his new documentary “Muse,” which aired on Showtime over the weekend, Bryant revealed that Vanessa suffered a miscarriage with what would have been their second child.
“Things would have been really easy to leave, especially during that time. It would have been much easier to leave. Take half the money. Have your daughter. But she didn’t do that.
“We were expecting our second child during that time. There was so much stress … she actually miscarried. I have a real hard time dealing with that because I felt like it was just my fault. Like we should be building our family but because of my mistake — because of this tough year — we lost a baby.
“We tried to justify — you don’t realize how common miscarriages are, you know, these things happen and it’s a part of the process. But the reality is it happened because of me. That’s the reality of it. And that’s something that I gotta carry forever.”
The Bryants’ first child, daughter Natalia, was born in 2003. The miscarriage occurred during the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna, was born in May 2006.
The miscarriage was one of many difficult times in the relationship between Kobe and Vanessa. She reportedly was fuming when some shirtless photos of Kobe were taken in 2012, which were released months after she filed for divorce in late 2011. The two eventually called off the split in 2013 and got back together.
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