- Vanessa Bryant testified Friday that she has panic attacks due to the circulation of crash-scene photos.
- Bryant is suing Los Angeles County officials for sharing photos from the January 2020 helicopter crash.
- The crash killed her husband, Kobe, and their daughter, Gigi.
The leak of gruesome photos from the scene of the helicopter crash that killed her husband and daughter left her feeling "helpless" and "disgusted," Vanessa Bryant testified Friday, saying that she still has panic attacks to this day.
Dressed all in black and often breaking down in tears, Bryant, appearing in a federal court in downtown Los Angeles, recounted the day that she learned that first responders were sharing photos of the crash that included human remains.
Her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter, Gigi, both died in the January 2020 crash in Calabasas.
Bryant was in her family's Newport Beach game room, accompanied by her surviving three daughters as well as basketball player Pau Gasol and his family, when the news broke that the photos were circulating among local police and others.
As the Los Angeles Times reported a month after the crash, sheriff's deputies were sharing "graphic photos" in the days following the crash.
"I ran to the side of the house and broke down — I wanted to run and scream," Bryant said on the stand. "It was like having the sensation of wanting to run off a pier into the ocean, but I can't escape my body."
After the leak, Bryant testified, she felt she had two choices: "try to live my life or end it."
Bryant is suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Fire Department, and Los Angeles County itself.
In earlier testimony, a bartender said that deputies had shown her the photos while drinking; the photos were also shared among firefighters at an awards gala.
In her testimony on Friday, Bryant said she felt "helpless, angry, disgusted" that strangers were gawking at the photos of her loved ones' corpses. She described receiving threats on social media, including a direct message that included the helicopter and flame emojis with the text: "Ima leak Kobe's dead boy."
Bryant continues to have panic attacks, she testified.
"The grief is from their loss," Bryant said. "The fear and anxiety is from those photos."
