Kobe Bryant’s daughter has not died by suicide

27 February 2020
What was claimed

Kobe Bryant’s daughter Natalia has died by suicide.

Our verdict

This is false, and the website making the claim is impersonating BBC News.

A number of fake web pages, widely shared on Facebook, wrongly claim that the eldest daughter of the late basketball star Kobe Bryant has died by suicide. They originate from a website which falsely impersonates BBC News.

Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash on 26 January. Since then, a number of false web pages  claiming that his 17-year-old daughter Natalia had died by suicide, and recorded herself doing it, have spread online.

Natalia is still alive. On February 24, Natalia and her two younger sisters attended a public, televised memorial service for Mr Bryant at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, where her mother Vanessa Bryant paid tribute to her late husband.

Although the web pages claiming Natalia died purport to be from BBC News, they are just impersonating the BBC by using its logo. The “suicide videos” are posted on black backgrounds, which is not in the BBC’s style, and have URLs which are clearly not related to the BBC.

The “suicide video” of Natalia is also not a video at all and in some versions links through to another false story about actor Will Smith and his son Jaden dying in a car crash—falsely purporting to be from CNN.

None of the web pages show any evidence that Natalia has died, and it has not been reported by any news outlets.

Another viral claim circulating on Facebook is that Natalia’s mother Vanessa has killed herself. We have fact-checked this too, and it is also false

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