Kobe Bryant once tweeted, “When u give Give GIVE and they take Take TAKE at wat point do u draw a line in the sand?” This was apparently about the news of his parents auctioning his pieces of memorabilia. Pam and Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant also avoided attending their son’s marriage in 2001 due to Vanessa being from another community.

Four and half years after Kobe’s unfortunate death, the news of Joe passing away was broken today by the Philadephia Inquirer on X. While some reports suggest that the strained relationship between the father and the son was reconciled before the latter’s death, there has been no public acknowledgment of it.

The disagreements started when Kobe Bryant decided to marry his eventual wife Vanessa. Joe, reportedly, had reservations about his African-American son marrying a Latina. Two years later in 2003, Kobe sent tickets to his father for the Lakers’ playoff game against the Timberwolves and Joe did show up, but he didn’t visit the shooting guard after the game.”My mom asked me to leave him a ticket, so of course I did,” Kobe revealed. “But I knew he wouldn’t come down and see me. He never does.” 

When Joe started working with the WNBA team Los Angeles Sparks as HC in 2005, it was reported that his relationship with Kobe got better. But all of it came to a screeching halt when the family got involved in a public feud.

Joe and Pamela hired a company named Goldin and tried auctioning some of Kobe Bryant’s memorabilia, which included uniforms from his High school days and a pair of Lakers championship rings from 2000 that he had gifted them.

What was the court verdict in the public feud involving Joe and Kobe Bryant?

Kobe filed a lawsuit against Goldin, but the two parties reached a settlement where Joe and Pam were allowed to sell less than 10% of the original list of items. However, they had to publicly apologize to Kobe, which they did via a press statement. “We regret our actions and statements related to the Kobe Bryant auction memorabilia. We apologize for any misunderstanding and unintended pain we have caused our son and appreciate the financial support he has provided over the years.”

Kobe Bryant, in 2013, spoke to ESPN and revealed that he hadn’t spoken to his parents for the past 3 years, calling the relationship “sh**.” The parents were missing from Kobe’s final NBA game in 2016. However, a source close to the family expressed that Joe hugged Kobe and the relationship was on the mend. “Just remember being with him up at his camp in Santa Barbara and seeing him hug his dad. You know how they loved each other from how they looked at each other, how they smiled,” Wayne Slappy, a friend of Joe Bryant, told Daily Mail in 2020.

“I remember after one Lakers game. Jellybean had been in Japan coaching. He had just come back. As soon as she saw him, Gigi ran over and grabbed him. You should have seen her eyes when she saw him. It’s those moments when you know love is in that family.” Slappy further added. Kobe, however, never talked much about his relationship with ‘Jellybean’ after his retirement.

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, has to say about the infamous Shaq-Kobe feud, Caitlin Clark’s Olympic snub, and more, watch this video.