VoxVib

Kobe Bryant fans are flocking to wrong gravesite to mourn his death

Explore More

Hundreds of Kobe Bryant fans are flocking to the wrong gravesite to pay respect to the Laker legend.

The mobs of mourners have wreaked havoc on California’s Pacific View Memorial Park, which has had to increase security after an article misidentified another family’s private plot as the final resting place for Bryant and his daughter Gianna, the cemetery told USA Today.

“We can confirm that is not Kobe and Gianna’s resting place,’’ Ashley Bunton of Service Corporation International, the owners of the Newport Beach Cemetary, told USA Today. “We cannot divulge any additional details as to where they are. But we can tell you that is not the correct location.’’

Staff at California’s Pacific View Memorial Park have had to clear out flowers piling up at the site each day after the Daily Mail ran a story misidentifying it as Bryant’s, Bunton said.

“Just a lot of people coming wandering the cemetery and looking to see if they can locate the burial site,’’ she said. “They’re just having to monitor things that are going on there.”

Bryant, 41, Gianna, 13 and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26. Death certificates for the Lakers star and his daughter listed their burial ground as Pacific View Memorial Park, which is about a 10-minute drive from the Bryants’ home in Newport Coast.

The purported site identified by the Mail showed a gravesite at the cemetery with purple and gold flowers.

Bunton told USA Today that the color choice was a coincidence and that the hoards of Bryant fans are disturbing the family of the person who was buried in the plot in November.

“Others have actually run into the family members who’ve kind of shooed people away from that spot,” she said, “just because it’s disturbing the peace to the person interred there.”

ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3F7j2tmanFfoLyjsYybqbKZnql6p63NrGSaqpVis627wqSgp59dqbxuw9GopaBll6eut7HSoqueZaSkeq671KulZqCZqHqlscCtn2g%3D

Jenniffer Sheldon

Update: 2024-05-17