With her husband, she founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation in 2007 to provide scholarships to minority college students worldwide.

Bryant leads the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting child athletes who are in need.

On January 26, 2020, Bryant's husband Kobe and her daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.

[1] Her family had been living in her maternal aunt's spare room until her mother's marriage to Laine, after which they relocated to Garden Grove.

[5] In August 1999, Bryant and her friend Rowena Ireifej attended a hip-hop concert at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

Bryant later appeared in music videos for artists including Krayzie Bone and Snoop Dogg.

[7] Their high-profile relationship caused disruptions at her high school, leading Bryant to complete her senior year at home as an independent study; she graduated in 2000.

[8] Bryant and her husband were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

[25] A few days later, she received a $4 million eight-carat purple diamond ring leading to speculation that this was a gift for her support.

Vanessa allegedly forced Jimenez to stick her hand in a bag of dog feces to retrieve a price tag as punishment for putting a $690 Gucci blouse in the washing machine and routinely called her “lazy, slow, dumb, a fucking liar and fucking shit,” among other abuses.

[6] In 2012, Bryant faced public backlash and was called a gold digger when she said in a New York Magazine interview: "I certainly would not want to be married to somebody that can’t win championships.

"[35][36] In December 2020, a lawsuit was filed against Vanessa by her mother Sofia Urbieta Laine for fraud, alleging she had worked for years without pay as their “personal assistant and nanny” and that Kobe had promised to support her financially before his death in January.

She sued Los Angeles County for invasion of privacy and negligence after employees of the Sheriff's Office and Fire Department took photos of the victims of the crash and improperly shared them.