A settlement has been reached that has Joe and Pamela Bryant issuing an apology to their son Kobe Bryant, and the Lakers' captain agreeing to drop his lawsuit and allow his parents to sell 10 percent of the memorabilia his mom was going to auction off to buy a house.
So perhaps this Father's Day will be a little less tense around Newport Coast.
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“We regret our actions and statements related to the Kobe Bryant auction memorabilia,” reads Joe and Pamela Bryant's statement. “We apologize for any misunderstanding and unintended pain we have caused our son and appreciate the financial support he has provided over the years. We also apologize to Goldin Auctions for their inadvertent involvement in this matter and thank them for their assistance.”
Pamela Bryant recently arranged with Goldin to auction off the NBA superstar's jerseys, rings and other memorabilia she claimed her son had given to her.
Kobe Bryant went to court to stop the sell-off, claiming he'd only left some of the items in the family home, that they should eventually go to his children, that some stuff had been taken without his knowledge from his Orange County estate, and that his mother was only pulling the stunt out of anger because he'd refused to buy her a new home in Las Vegas.
Goldin Auctions had given Pamela Bryant $450,000 upfront so she could buy the house. Company president Ken Goldin told ESPN.com this morning that he is confident the six items Kobe allowed to be sold under the settlement will still fetch more than $500,000 combined, with some proceeds going to charity. The baller said today he would have no comment.
Bidding is now set to start June 17 and close July 19 for two of Bryant's high school uniforms, two rings celebrating the 2000 Lakers championship team and a 2000 NBA All-Star ring. Goldin noted the same auction will include the only existing bat from Jackie Robinson's 1949 MVP-winning season, although we don't know if that came from the late color-barrier breaker's parents.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.