In 2003, Kobe Bryant found himself in one of the biggest controversies in the league’s history. In the off-season, after a gruesome championship campaign, Bryant went to Edward Hotel in Colorado ahead of surgery. But he was soon arrested after a 19-year-old employee in the hotel accused him of s*xually assaulting her.
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However, the 19-year-old later refused to testify against him and Kobe was let go free. The allegations were never proven however, many of the initial responders and people who interviewed the alleged victim duly believed the Lakers star to be guilty.
In her testimony, she had alleged that Bryant invited her to his room and then forced himself upon him. She also claimed that afterward, he had made her wash her face. She later confessed that particular detail was misquoted.
After accusing Kobe Bryant, the 19-year-old confessed to misquoting a detail
Having accused Bryant, the hotel employee wrote to the State investigator and confessed that she had made up one slight detail in her testimony. She admitted that while she had first claimed Bryant had forced her to wash her face, he never actually did that. She clarified that he had only made her stay in the room.
In his book Three-Ring Circus, Jeff Pearlman wrote of this:
“Around this same time, Accuser penned a letter to Gerry Sandberg, a state investigator, admitting that some of the initial details she’d provided to Winters might have been a tad off. While insisting that she was, indeed, r*ped, the Accuser wrote: “I told Detective Winters that Mr. Bryant had made me stay in the room and wash my face. While I was held against my will in that room, I was not forced to wash my face. I did not wash my face.” Nothing seemed to be going well in the case against Bryant. There were increased discussions about Accuser’s alleged promiscuity and erratic behavior. There were threats of violence. The media would not leave her alone—staking out her house, following her around Eagle, desperate for any nugget of juicy information.”
While Kobe Bryant’s death sparked an outpouring of tributes, his legacy is also marked by an allegation of sexual assault.
But those who brought it up faced a backlash from some fans who said it’s too soon to revisit that part of his life. https://t.co/xg1AixjAD1— CBC News (@CBCNews) January 29, 2020
Kobe could never outrun the accusations
A beloved athlete, a fierce competitor, an Academy Award winner, and a proud dad. Bryant’s extraordinary resume has always remained in the shadows of his 2003 scandal.
The accusations that were leveled against him were appalling. And although those accusations were dropped, the evidence against him was still concerning. Even his own apology to the 19-year-old woman whose life was changed that night mentioned how the woman may not have felt about the interaction the same way Bryant did.
Kobe: “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.”
In the age where the debate about consent and all its implications has become a need of the hour, Kobe Bryant’s case truly dampens the impact of his career.
For his fans and followers, people whose lives were changed by Bryant’s game and his work off the court, this is one thing that will always trouble them. Gnaw at them like a termite you can never get rid of.
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