Natalia Bryant Graduates Cum Laude from the University of Southern California — and Mom Vanessa Bryant Celebrates: ‘So Proud’
Natalia opened up to PEOPLE exclusively in 2024 about how she balances her professional and educational life.
“If someone says [being a full-time student] is not difficult, they’re lying, because it is,” she said at the time. “That in itself is a full-time job.”
Natalia continued, “But I do think that having a great support team, family and friends, has been the most important thing.”
Natalia made her runway debut with Versace at Milan Fashion Week in 2024. At the time, she expressed interest in entering the fashion world full-time post-grad.
Citing her younger sister Bianka, 8, as one of her fashion inspirations, Natalia told PEOPLE, “She is such a strong personality and she knows what she wants. She wakes up, she knows what she wants to wear, she knows how to style, she’ll know how to style me.”
Natalia, Vanessa and the rest of their family faced tragedy when Kobe Bryant and Gianna Bryant died in a helicopter crash in 2020.
Vanessa previously praised her daughter’s strength amid the loss of her father and sister, and how she looked out for her little sisters while navigating her own future, in a March 2021 interview with PEOPLE.
“On top of her own grief, she has balanced her senior year of high school, applying to colleges, nurturing her sisters, and just recently signing her own modeling contract with IMG,” she said, then calling Natalia her “right-hand woman.”
