Source: Stefanie Keenan / Getty
Vanessa Bryant’s mother, Sofia Urbieta, has come forward again to reinforce her claims that her daughter has abandoned her financially after she was promised that she would be supported for the rest of her days by Vanessa and her late husband, Kobe Bryant. After Urbieta filed a $5 million lawsuit against Bryant and Kobe Bryant’s estate, Bryant came forward and said her mother is trying to extort her. Urbieta has now responded to these allegations in a lengthy statement.
In her statement, which she provided to TMZ, Urbieta said that Bryant’s claims that she is trying to extort her are “far from the truth.”
For starters, I would like to state that I do not enjoy airing our family grievances in the public. Although I filed a lawsuit, I did not make any public comments and was hoping for the court process to run its course without the publicity, as hurtful as it is. I did not want this and do not want this. However I did not have a choice as it is Vanessa’s own doing that has resulted in this now public quarrel. All I wanted is what I worked for. Vanessa, despite everything that I have been promised and done for her and the family, has attempted to sever all ties and renege on all obligations and agreements. Why would she do this to her own mother? I am so disappointed, hurt, and wronged to the point that I had no choice but to file a lawsuit. I am nearly 70 years old, my health is deteriorating, and my own daughter is dong this to me?”
Urbieta claimed that she was a nanny to the Bryant family as well as their personal assistant, something that Bryant denies. Urbieta continued to say this was the truth in her statement and that her daughter was the one who decided she would be paid $96 a hour.
“As for the $96.00 hourly wage that I am seeking, it was actually Vanessa that set this wage and not me,” she added. “When Vanessa moved me out of my home and into an apartment, she completed a rental application in my name, without my knowledge, and wrote that I was being paid $200,000 annually, which equates to a $96.00 per hour wage.”
Urbieta accused her daughter of cancelling and voiding “everything that I was entitled to” after Kobe Bryant’s death.
“Promises were made, work was done, and, in the end, Vanessa cancelled and voided everything that I was entitled to,” she continued. “What Vanessa did to me in private was hurtful. Now, she is hurting me even more in public and it is exceedingly difficult for me to go forward but I am strong, and I will persevere, even though she has a very large and expensive public relations team. I have nothing to hide.”
When the lawsuit first made headlines, Bryant said that her mother was never hired as a nanny nor personal assistant and that Kobe Bryant never promised her anything and that she has financially supported her mother for almost two decades.
My mother is continuing to try and find ways to extort a financial windfall from our family. I have supported her for nearly twenty years, and she was never my or Kobe’s personal assistant, nor was she a nanny. I have always been a stay-at-home mother and my husband and I were our daughter’s full-time care givers. For nearly two decades, we arranged for my mother to live in our nearby properties, at no cost to her because she had claimed that she didn’t have any money to buy her own home after her divorce. My husband and I felt it was best for her not to live in our home. She watched our girls from time to time, just like most grandparents do. She did not take care of business issues or expenses. She was a grandmother who was supported by me and her son-in-law at my request. My husband and I have never discouraged or kept her from providing for herself. This lawsuit is frivolous, disgraceful, and unimaginably hurtful. My husband never promised my mother anything, and he would be so disappointed in her behavior and lack of empathy.
