Vanessa Bryant’s Mother Is Suing For Financial Support

Following the untimely death of Kobe Bryant earlier this year, Vanessa Bryant is now accusing her mother, Sofia Urbieta Laine of trying to “extort a financial windfall” from her family, a new lawsuit reports. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, court documents filed on Tuesday (Dec. 15) claim Laine is owed years of back pay for working as a “longtime personal assistant and nanny” for the family. The 68-year-old also says that the Lakers legend had “promised to take care” of his mother-in-law “for the rest of her life” just days before his death in a helicopter crash alongside his daughter Gianna and seven others. 

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“Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant’s promise 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’s promises,” the 48-page lawsuit claims, saying Vanessa Bryant never intended to honor her late husband’s comments.

Vanessa said that she and her husband had financially supported her mother and allowed her to live in one of their homes near their Newport Coast residence for free. 

“She was a grandmother who was supported by me and her son-in-law at my request,” Bryant said. “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.”

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Vaness says that she was a stay-at-home-mom to her four daughters, Natalia,17; Bianka, 4; Capri 18 months; and Gianna, 13. And writes that for the last ten years her children were attending school or enrolled in sports programs and that her mother’s claims are false. 

According to financial experts, Vanessa Bryant inherited control of an estate valued at as much as $600 million after Kobe Bryant’s death, the Los Angeles Times reports.