Rick Fox speaks out after the tragic incident that caused fans to flood his Instagram with “RIP” messages.
The 50-year-old retired basketball player spoke to a news portal on Tuesday (Jan. 28) about the false reports of him being onboard with NBA Great Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and the other victims who lost their lives when their helicopter crashed in Calabasas, Calif.
The speculations of Fox’s death were put to rest when his step-daughter Jillian Hervey took to Twitter to clear the air saying, “To confirm my stepdad Rick Fox is ALIVE and safe! I just got off the phone with my sister. We are all in shock and deeply saddened but please don’t spread false news. #ripkobe .”
“My family went through, in the midst of all this, something that I couldn’t imagine them experiencing,” Fox revealed to the news portal. “It’s one of his daughters greatest fears to find out on social media that one of her parents died,” he went on to add.
“She, fortunately, called me and we were just talking and crying about the news of Kobe,” he continued.
Fox further revealed that someone had told his best friend King Rice that he was on the helicopter with Bryant that morning.
“I’m seeing King’s number repeatedly going and going and going, and I think he’s worried about me, so I said, ‘I’m gonna talk to my best friend,’ so I answered and said, ‘Hey man, this is crazy about Kobe,’ and he just was bawling. And I started crying. And he was like, ‘You’re alive!’ And I was like, ‘Well, yeah. Like what do you mean?’ And it was in that moment that my phone just started going, and my mom and my sister and my brother…this has been a lot to process for all of us,” he explained.
“I’m glad that’s over with, but it was hard to deal with because it shook a lot of people in my life,” he concluded.