Vanessa Bryant recreates old photograph in tribute to late daughter Gianna

Gianna and her father, Kobe Bryant, died in a helicopter crash in January 2020

(L) Gianna Bryant and Vanessa Bryant (Getty Images)

Vanessa Bryant has recreated a photograph of her late daughter, Gianna, while on holiday in Italy.

In a post to her Instagram on Saturday, 7 August, Bryant shared an old picture of Gianna sitting next to her elder sister, Natalia, now 18, on a bench in Capri.

Alongside the photograph, she posted a current-day picture of her youngest daughters, Bianka, 4, and Capri, 2, sitting on the same bench.

In the first picture, taken at an undisclosed time, Gianna sports two blue bows in her hair as she smiles at the camera.

“Missing my baby girl, Gigi. My #2. Mambacita,” Bryant captioned the tribute.

Gianna, 13, and her father, basketball player Kobe Bryant, were amongst the nine people who died in a helicopter crash in Southern California in January 2020.

The throwback photograph was also shared by Natalia on her Instagram, alongside a current-day shot of her sitting on the bench alone. She captioned the post with a single red heart emoji.

Bryant and her daughters have spent two weeks in Europe, travelling around Italy, France and Croatia.

Sharing a series of pictures of the family in Croatia, she revealed that her late husband had agreed Natalia could visit the country last year, but she was unable to go because of the pandemic.

“Took my kids to King’s Landing,” she wrote in the caption. “Kobe allowed Natalia to go on a trip to Croatia with her class her senior year of high school but unfortunately the trip was cancelled due to COVID.”

“I wanted to make sure that @nataliabryant got the opportunity to visit. It’s beautiful!” she added.

In an interview with People in March, Bryant said the grief of losing her husband and second-eldest daughter is “unimaginable”.

“I can’t say that I’m strong every day,” she said. “I can’t say that there aren’t days when I feel like I can’t survive to the next.”

“This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward. Lying in bed crying isn’t going to change the fact that my family will never be the same again.

“But getting out of bed and pushing forward is going to make the day better for my girls and for me. So that’s what I do,” she added.