Jordan at Bryant tribute quips that new crying meme is on its way
Michael Jordan quipped through tears at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service that another crying meme of him is on the way, courtesy of the late basketball star.
“I told my wife I wasn’t going to do this because I didn’t want to see that for the next three or four years,” Jordan told the fans gathered at the Los Angeles Staples Center on Monday for a ceremony honoring the former Los Angeles Laker and his teenage daughter, Gianna Bryant.
Forty one-year-old Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others died last month in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif.
Saying with a grin that he’d have to “look at another crying meme” for years on end, Jordan said, “But that is what Kobe Bryant does to me.”
“As I got to know him, I wanted to be the best big brother that I could be.”
Michael Jordan on Kobe Bryant. pic.twitter.com/dTSp7VDosP
— NBA TV (@NBATV) February 24, 2020
“Crying Jordan” — an image of the NBA Hall of Famer with tears rolling down his face — became an internet meme years ago.
Calling Bryant a “little brother” to him, Jordan said, “I’m pretty sure [Bryant’s wife] Vanessa [Bryant] and his friends all can say the same thing: He knows how to get to you in a way that affects you personally.”
“Even though he’s being a pain in the ass,” Jordan, 57, said with a smile, “you had a sense of love for him, in a way that he can bring out the best in you.”
“When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died,” Jordan continued.
“I promise you, from this day forward, I will live with the memories of knowing that I had a little brother that I tried to help in every way I could,” he added.
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