Vanessa Bryant shared a sweet Instagram message to her sister-in-law Sharia Washington to wish her a happy birthday on Thursday. Sharia’s birthday comes just two months after the tragic helicopter crash that claimed the lives of her younger brother, basketball legend Kobe Bryant, her niece Gigi and seven other souls.
Earlier this week, Kobe’s widow Vanessa filed paperwork to amend his trust to include their youngest daughter Capri. Vanessa shared a cute throwback image of Sharia cuddled up with she and Kobe’s daughter Bianka and smiling broadly.
In the selfie, the girls looked to be having a great time, wearing a filter with teddy bear ears, red framed glasses and cartoon hearts floating.
She captioned the post: ‘Happy birthday, Sharia. Love you. ❤️ #tb pic (B.B and my sister-in-law) ❤️’ Sharia is Kobe’s only sibling and the two were very close. Following the horrific helicopter accident, Washington got a tattoo in honor of Kobe and Gigi. The tribute tattoo has a black Mamba snake wrapped around the numbers two and 24, which were Gianna and Kobe’s basketball jersey numbers. Sharia shared a shot of the ink on social media and penned alongside the snap: ‘Thank you @peterbarriostattoo,’ followed by prayer hands, a snake and a heart emoji. The heartbroken sibling had copied the design of one of Kobe’s T-shirts, which had a white snake wrapped around the numbers two and four, in reference to his 24 basketball jersey. On Tuesday, Vanessa Bryant asked a judge to amend the NBA legend’s trust to include their youngest daughter.
According to a ‘petition to modify trust’ filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday, Vanessa asked that the trust be amended so that it includes 9-month-old Capri, who was born after the document was last updated. The documents stated Kobe created the trust to provide for his wife and children in 2003. It has been amended several times, the last in 2017.Capri is the youngest Bryant child after Natalia, 16, two-year-old , and the now deceased Gianna, 13.Gianna died in the same fiery crash that killed her father and seven others as they were traveling to Kobe’s Mamba Sports Academy.
The pilot, Ara Zobayan, had nearly navigated the helicopter out of blinding clouds when it turned and plunged into the mountainside. Vanessa after the crash filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that Zobayan was careless and negligent by flying in cloudy conditions and should have aborted the flight.
