Vanessa Bryant is crestfallen that the Nike shoes she personally designed to honor her late husband and daughter, Kobe and Gianna Bryant, have been made and leaked without her permission.
The widow of the late lionized Los Angeles Lakers star explained to her 15 million Instagram on Thursday, June 3, 2021, that she is shocked that the “Mambacita” shoes she did not authorize Nike to develop are already in someone else’s possession.
To add injury to insult, Bryant said she and her surviving daughters do not even have a pair of the shoes.
“This is a shoe I worked on in honor of my daughter, Gianna,” Vanessa penned on IG. “It was going to be called the MAMBACITA shoe as an exclusive black and white colorway on her daddy’s shoes. I picked the colors in honor of her uniform, the number 2 she wore just like her uniform, the inside pattern, Kobe and Gigi on the back in gold instead of Kobe’s signature, the inside shoe details (butterfly, wings, halo), etc.”
TMZ reports that Instagram user, brandon1an, first posted the shoe leak and claims Nike is the one responsible for giving the shoes to a retailer.
Bryant conveyed her disgust as she continued in her own IG post, indicating that the creation of the shoe represents a breach of trust at the very least.
Flip the page to view the rest of Bryant’s thoughts on the matter.
