Kobe Bryant Mural Spray-Painted With ‘Rapist’ Hours After Unveiling

People all over the country have been honoring Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant since his tragic passing.

Unfortunately, one mural in Austin, Texas that was put up to mourn Bryant’s death was defaced just hours after it was finished.

The mural, which depicted Bryant and his daughter Gianna, was spray-painted with the word “rapist” the same day that the original work was unveiled.

“My heart sunk,” one of the artists who worked on the mural said of the defacement. “I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I went to bed last night just feeling so grateful for all of the love we’ve been getting recently with this and to wake up and see that, it made me sick. The first thing I did was hop in my car and obviously I grabbed my paints. I went to go fix it as soon as I found out.”

The defacement is surely a reference to an incident in 2003 which led to Bryant being charged for sexually assaulting a woman. Ultimately, prosecutors dropped the case because the accuser was not willing to testify.

While that incident stained Bryant’s persona for quite some time, he was able to fully rehabilitate his image and ultimately retired from the NBA as one of the most beloved figures in the league’s history.

Bryant and his daughter perished in a tragic helicopter crash on Sunday that claimed the lives of seven others.

With works of public art and vigils behind held across the world, hopefully this defacement is the sole instance in which someone feels compelled to try to sully Bryant and his memory.