Shareef O’Neal, Shaq’s son, is honoring Kobe and Gianna Bryant in a very special way. Shareef has been deeply affected by Kobe and Gianna’s passing. Not only did he watch Shaq and Kobe as teammates growing up, but he had a personal relationship of his own with the Black Mamba, who he lovingly referred to as “unc.”
Shortly following news that Kobe and Gianna were among the nine killed in a helicopter crash on January 26th, Shareef shared a screenshot of a conversation he’d had with Kobe that morning. Kobe messaged Shareef on Instagram asking, “You good fam?” Shareef answered about three hours later, around the time the crash would have occurred.
“Literally this morning you reached out to me,” he tweeted along with the screenshot. “I love you forever unc, I love you. … You’ve really been there for me all 20 years of my life … been there for me since I was born … love you.”
“GIGI love you cousin,” he added of Gianna.
Shareef honored Kobe and Gianna with a tattoo in their honor. The tattoo features Gianna’s #2 jersey from Mamba Academy. Beneath is, Kobe stands holding a basketball over his head. To the right, both his jersey numbers, 8 and 24, appear. On the right of the images is “Mamba Mentality,” honoring Kobe’s lasting legacy.
Shaq has also been deeply affected by Kobe and Gianna’s passing. On Friday, he was in Miami at Shaq’s Fun House Big Game Weekend Party ahead of the Super Bowl. Shaq donated all the proceeds from his Super Bowl event to the families affected by the helicopter crash and the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation.
“We’re gonna be hurting for a very long time,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “As I said on TV, I haven’t been right anyway. Ever since — you know, when you work as hard as I do, try to do certain things, you miss certain things. I just wish I was able to say one last thing. Or two last things. Or 10 last things.”
Source : https://www.littlethings.com/shareef-kobe-and-gianna-tattoo/