Kobe Bryant, who with his daughter Gianna and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash Sunday, will be recognized during the 92nd Oscars ceremony which is set for February 9 on ABC.
Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers icon, won an Animated Short Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball. The short film, revolving around an essay he wrote as he neared retirement from the NBA in 2016, was animated by Glen Keane and featured music by John Williams.
The Academy on Sunday paid tribute to Bryant in a touching Instagram post, writing, “They doubted a kid could make it in the NBA and he proved them wrong. They doubted he could win a championship and he proved them wrong. They doubted he could make movies and he won an Oscar. Like all great artists, Kobe Bryant proved the doubters wrong. Rest in peace.”
According to Variety, Bryant will be included in the In Memoriam montage of film world figures who have died since the last Oscar ceremony, and there may also be a separate tribute planned outside of the montage, sources said.
One of the most heartbreaking tributes after the basketball great's death has to be the tribute from his former teammate Shaquille O’Neal, who was left in tears talking about the death of Bryant.
O’Neal’s comments came at the start of TNT’s pregame show, as he sat on the court at Staples Center along with the rest of the network’s studio team. TNT was supposed to televise a doubleheader, but the NBA canceled the Lakers-Clippers game that was scheduled to be the nightcap because the Lakers organization is still too devastated after the death of Bryant and his daughter.
“I haven’t felt a pain that sharp in a while,” O’Neal said.
Shaq said he was working out with his son and nephew, when another nephew walked into the room crying and showed him the phone.
“I snapped at him,” O’Neal said. “I said, ‘Get that out of my face.'”
O’Neal said he thought it was a hoax at first, and then he started getting phone calls from friends and other fellow basketball players.
“I lost my little sister, I haven't been sleepin', I haven't been doing the normal things that I usually do. I work, we laugh, we kid, we joke, when I get back home I look at reality and say she's gone and it just hurts,” Shaq said as he referred to the Bryants as family saying, “I lost a sister, and now I've lost a little brother.”
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