Vanessa Bryant says love at first sight is very real.

The wife of the late NBA great recently revealed that it happened to her the very first time she met Kobe Bryant 21 years ago.

Over the weekend, Bryant shared a photo of her and the former LA Laker while visiting Disneyland.

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A post shared by Vanessa Bryant Fans (@vanessabryantfanz)

Last Friday, Bryant celebrated the 21st anniversary of the day she and Kobe met. She captioned the Instagram post writing “Love at first sight 11/27/99 #21.”

Vanessa and Kobe met in 1999 during a music video shoot while she was still in high school and he was 20 years old. The couple became engaged when she turned 18, announced their engagement at her 18th birthday party, and the Bryants married in April 2001.

In 2013, Kobe shared a picture of the day they met on Instagram.

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A post shared by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant)

“On this day 20 years ago I met my best friend, my Queen @vanessabryant I decided to take her on a date to Disneyland tonight to celebrate old school style (pre 4princesses) I love you my mamacita per sempre,” Kobe wrote in the Instagram post at the time.

After their 2001 message, Kobe and Vanessa had four daughters together, Natalia, 17, Gianna, 13, Bianka, 3, and Capri, 1. Tragically, in January, Bryant and Gianna passed away in a helicopter crash alongside seven others.

Last year, Kobe also reflected on the day he met his “best friend,” posting a throwback pic along with the Disneyland snap.

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A post shared by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant)

“On this day 20 years ago I met my best friend, my Queen @vanessabryant,” he captioned his post at the time. “I decided to take her on a date to Disneyland tonight to celebrate old school style (pre 4princesses) I love you my mamacita per sempre.”

It’s not the first time Vanessa honored her husband since his death. In October, the former model and philanthropist honored her husband and daughter with tattoos.

Speaking about her loss, Vanessa’s friend La La Anthony told Entertainment Today that she’s done her best to stay strong.

“Well, you know, I’m a real friend, that’s what friends do,” Anthony told ET in September. “You know, you don’t dip out on your friends when it gets really hard. And she’s going through something that is unimaginable, that, you know, I can’t even fathom what that feels like. So, just to be a friend and be there to make her laugh when she needs to, cry when she needs to, is a beautiful thing. But that’s what friends do for each other, you know, so I’m always going to be there for her and the girls and just, you know, want to see her just continue to be strong and amazing.”

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Machismo.

If you haven’t experienced it, you’ve definitely seen it. Most Latinas have watched it take form beneath the roof of their very own family homes and have experienced it first hand. From being glaringly aware of how much less time their brothers and papas spend in the kitchen to constantly being told to play less aggressively than the boys, most girls see it at a young age.

The children of celebrities are apparently no different.

Speaking about experiencing double standards in her own household, while growing up with her brother Jaden, Willow Smith got real on the Red Table Talk.

On this week’s Red Table Talk, Willow opened up about experiencing machismo with her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith and her grandmother Adrienne Banfield Norris.

“There is a difference between how Black moms treat their daughters and their sons,” Willow said in a clip. Willow went onto share that in her own experience it extended to “something as simple as getting up at the right time” where her mother would hurry her out of the house before school, Meanwhile Jaden was given more leniency.

“It was like, ‘You better get up. You better get dressed.’ I’d be in my room going like, ‘OK, I gotta get…,'” Willow says while acting stressed and hurried. “But then Jaden is there and she’d be like, ‘Uh, so are you ready to uh…’ and he’d be like, ‘Uh, maybe one moment.'”

Willow spoke about how machismo affected her while she would be “ready at the door” for school. While mimicking Jaden’s pace, and noting how slow he was going, Willow explained that he would be “getting his shoes on” with a lot less urgency.

“That’s true,” Jade laughed, “She might have a point. Because I was like she better be on it. You? Nah.”

Likely, Pinkett’s comment refers to her desire to see her daughter pay more attention and work harder in school.

“For me, I knew that she’s gonna have it twice as hard,” the “Girls Trip” star said. “I needed you to be strong because I know what this world is like for us as Black women… My fear for having a Black daughter and what I felt like she needed to be in this world put me in a position to be a little harder on her.”

And in ways, Pinkett’s reasoning comes from a place of well-meaning. After all, a study from The State of Black Women in Corporate America 2020  found that African-American women are repressed beyond belief in the United States underlining that Black women “who seek promotions at the same rate as white men, are only 58 percent as likely to be promoted to a managerial position and only 64 percent as likely to be hired into such positions. At a disadvantage from the beginning of their careers, Black women see the representation gap continue to widen and end up accounting for only 1.6 percent of vice presidents and 1.4 percent of C-suite executives, while white men hold 57 percent and 68 percent of those positions.”

Red Table Talk airs this Tuesdays at 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET on Facebook Watch.

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