Names and faces
■ A federal judge has ruled that Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant’s widow, must turn over her therapy records to Los Angeles County in her lawsuit claiming she suffered emotional distress after first responders took and shared graphic photos from the site of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed the basketball star, his teenage daughter and seven others. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Charles Eick granted a request by county lawyers to review Vanessa Bryant’s records, the Los Angeles Times reported. But the judge limited the documents to the years since 2017, not 2010 as the lawyers had sought. “Plaintiff has waived her psychotherapist-patient privilege by placing into controversy the reportedly extraordinary, continuing emotional distress allegedly resulting from Defendants’ photograph-related actions or inactions,” the judge wrote of the Jan. 26, 2020, crash near Los Angeles. Vanessa Bryant, who is suing for invasion of privacy and seeking damages for emotional distress, testified in a deposition that because of the photos she has suffered constant fear and anxiety and has had trouble sleeping. The case is scheduled for trial in February. However, county lawyers led by outside counsel Skip Miller argue that the deaths caused her distress, and they sought the therapy records to determine Bryant’s mental state. The same judge had rejected an earlier request to require her to undergo a mental health evaluation. Her lawyers, who had argued that the effort to get her therapy records was an invasion of her privacy, didn’t immediately comment.
■ Kristen Stewart is gunning for gay ghosts. The star of the “Twilight” movies is developing a gay ghost-hunting reality television series, a project she is describing as “a paranormal romp in a queer space.” Stewart revealed her plans to join the celebrity ghost hunting trend in a recent interview with the New Yorker. “Gay people love pretty things,” the 31-year-old BAFTA Award winner told the magazine last month, in an interview published Tuesday. “So we are aiming for a richness,” she added. Stewart, who recently announced she was engaged to her longtime girlfriend Dylan Meyer, said that she’s also writing a television series with her soon-to-be-wife. Stewart, whose performance as Princes Diana in “Spencer” has been generating early Oscar buzz, is not the only famous face making a foray into the unknown. Popstar Demi Lovato, a Grammy-nominated singer and self-described, “activist and UFO experiencer,” has the Peacock series “Unidentified with Demi Lovato.” And, fellow pop sensation Kesha has announced a new TV series, “Conjuring Kesha,” scheduled to premiere next year on discovery+, where she and her friends will explore “mysterious paranormal hot spots.”