Disney Heiress Says Kobe Bryant Should Not Be Deified After Discussing Rape Allegations

In a long Twitter message, Disney heiress, Abigail spoke out about the late Kobe Bryant’s 2003 rape allegations and said the championship basketball player ‘was not a god’ as reported by Daily Mail.

Disney, 60, first addressed Bryant’s rape allegations in a tweet four days after he and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna ‘Gigi’ Bryant, perished along with seven other victims in a helicopter crash.

In a tweet accompanied with a Washington Post article, she said: ‘The man was a rapist. Deal with it.’

On Saturday, Disney shared 24 tweets where she doubled down on her stance about the Los Angeles Lakers all-star’s past but admitted she still ‘mourned’ him.

In her first tweet, she says it is time to bite the bullet and say something.

— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) February 1, 2020

In the long tweet, she further said that a person can do ‘both good and bad’ in a lifetime. Still, she says that all the good he has accomplished does not absolve him of allegedly raping someone.

I mourn Kobe too. He went on to be a man who seemed genuinely to want to do good. The fact that he raped someone does not change any of these other facts.

In 2003, a 19-year-old woman accused Bryant of sexually assaulting her while he was in Eagle, Colorado, for a knee operation. He reportedly asked the young woman, a concierge at the hotel Bryant was staying, for a private tour.

After the tour, Bryant invited the woman to his room where they began kissing. Bryant asserted that they had consensual sex, but the woman said it was rape. The woman later reported the alleged rape, with authorities finding bruises on her neck and tears to her vaginal wall.

The case never went to trial as the woman refused to testify in court, but Bryant later settled with the woman in civil court. After the criminal case’s dismissal, he issued a public apology to the woman.

In addition to Disney, others who have highlighted Bryant’s rape allegations have received overwhelming backlash.

Actress Evan Rachel Woods received intense condemnation after sharing a tweet about Bryant on the day he died.

‘I am heartbroken for Kobe’s family. He was a sports hero. He was also a rapist. And all of these truths can exist simultaneously.’

A Washington Post reporter was suspended from her job for tweeting a link to a past Daily Beast article that examined Bryant’s case.