“Kobe Bryant was a rapist,” actress Evan Rachel Wood declared on Twitter on the day that the basketball superstar died. Now more than a year later, his widow, Vanessa Bryant caught wind of the tweet and gave Wood a scathing rebuke on Instagram.
Evan Rachel Wood’s January 26, 2020 tweet, which has now been deleted said:
What has happened is tragic. 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.
Vanessa Bryant wrote this reply today:
This just came to my attention.
@evanrachelwood Your false, insensitive, defamatory and slanderous tweet on 1/26/20 is vile and disturbing to say the least. Behavior like this is part of the reason why innocent black men go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. An accusation doesn’t make someone guilty. YOU DON’T KNOW THE FACTS OF THE CASE.
Vanessa also sent the same message to director Abigail Disney who shared a Washington Post Op-Ed recounting Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case days after he died.
In July 2003, at the height of his career, Kobe Bryant was accused of rape by a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. In September 2004 however, before the trial could be scheduled, the case was dropped because the accuser refused to testify.
In August 2004, the accuser sued Kobe Bryant in civil court and in March 2005 that was settled for a rumored $2.5 million.
Earlier this month, Evan Rachel Wood called her former fiancé Marilyn Manson “her abuser”. As of this writing, she has not responded to Vanessa Bryant regarding her tweet last year.