ESPN's Elle Duncan Goes Viral, Gets 'Girl Dad' Trending in Touching On-Air Tribute to Kobe Bryant

ESPN sports anchor Elle Duncan went viral for her touching tribute to Kobe Bryant while she spent a half hour with him at an event years ago.

At the time, Kobe had three kids: Natalia, now 17, Bianka, now 3, and the late Gigi, who passed away at age 13 alongside her dad. Since then, Kobe and Vanessa welcomed a baby girl Capri, 7 months.

Elle explained when she saw him at an event while pregnant, “I saw him and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Kobe. I’ve gotta get a picture for the ‘gram.’ I didn’t get it for a few minutes because, as I approached him, he immediately commented on my rather large, eight month pregnant belly.”

“‘A girl,’ I said and then he high-fives me: ‘Girls are the best.’ I asked him for advice on raising girls seeing as though he quite famously had three at the time and he said, ‘Just be grateful that you’ve been given that gift because girls are amazing.’”

Kobe added, “He said that his wife Vanessa really wanted to try again for a boy but was sort of jokingly concerned that it would be another girl. I was like, ‘Four girls, are you joking? Like, what would you think? How would you feel?’ And without hesitation he said, ‘I would have five more girls if I could. I’m a girl dad.’”

“When it came to sports, he said that his oldest daughter was an accomplished volleyball player and that the youngest was a toddler, so tbd. But that middle one, he said, ‘That middle one was a monster. She’s a beast. She’s better than I was at her age. She’s got it.’ That middle one, of course, was Gigi,” Elle continued.

“When I reflect on this tragedy and that half an hour that I spent with Kobe Bryant two years ago,” she continued. “I suppose that the only small source of comfort for me is knowing that he died doing what he loved the most: being a dad, being a girl dad.”