Vanessa Bryant says Evan Rachel Wood calls her late husband Kobe Bryant a “rapist” the day she died is “vile” and “disturbing.”
Hours after Kobe’s death on January 26, 2020, the 33-year-old “Westworld” actress wrote on Twitter: “What happened is tragic. I have a broken heart for Kobe’s family. He was a sports hero. He was also a rapist. And all these truths can exist simultaneously. ”
Vanessa, 38, posted on Instagram Story on Saturday that the tweet came to her attention a year later.
“Your fake, insensitive, defamatory and slanderous tweet from 26.01.2020 is vile and annoying to say the least,” the widow of the NBA player wrote in a screenshot of the original tweet. “Such behavior is part of the reason why innocent black men go to prison for crimes they did not commit. An accusation does not make anyone guilty. ”
“YOU DON’T KNOW THE FACTS OF THE CASE,” she added. Vanessa sent the same message to filmmaker Abigail Disney, who posted on Twitter at the time: “The man was a rapist. Do it. ”
Kobe was charged with sexual assault in 2003 by a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. Prosecutors dropped the charges after the prosecutor refused to testify. She subsequently filed a civil lawsuit against Los Angeles Laker, which was settled out of court in 2005.
Wood’s tweet immediately sparked backlash in 2020, with fans coming to Kobe’s defense. Actress Kyla Pratt responded that she admired Wood’s work, but “this tweet? How dare you?
Vanessa posted and thanked Pratt for his response to Wood on Saturday.
A Wood representative did not immediately return our request for comment.
Earlier this month, Wood named her alleged abuser as former fiancée Marilyn Manson.
“She started taking care of me when I was a teenager and abused me horribly for years,” she said. “I was brainwashed and manipulated into obedience. I ended up living in fear of reprisals, slander or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and to shout out the many industries that have allowed him, before destroying other lives. I stand by the many victims who will not be silent. ”
Following several accusations from Wood and other women, Manson – who vehemently denied all the allegations – was abandoned by the record company and its long-term manager.
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent statements about me are horrible distortions of reality,” Manson, 52, said in a statement. “My intimate relationships have always been consensual with partners with the same idea. No matter how – and why – others now choose to distort the past, this is the truth. ”