Kobe Bryant, father of 4 daughters, proudly called himself a 'girl dad'

ESPN anchor Elle Duncan made everyone tear up again as she shared her own Kobe Bryant anecdote following the basketball legend's sudden death on a helicopter crash.

Duncan said she caught up with Bryant while she was eight months pregnant and the two of them had a poignant conversation about parenthood.

When the retired NBA superstar found out that she was having a girl, he gave her a hi-five.

"Girls are the best," the five-time champion and then father of three girls—Natalia, Gianna, and Bianka—told her.

Duncan then asked him for advice on how to raise daughters.

"Just be grateful that you've been given that gift because girls are amazing," Bryant told her.

When she asked if he wanted more children, Bryant said his wife Vanessa wanted to try for a boy but they were concerned that the baby would be another girl—which was what exactly happened.

The couple welcomed their fourth daughter, Capri Kobe, last year. She is now seven months old.

But Bryant did not mind not having a son.

"I would have five more girls if I could. I'm a girl dad," he told Duncan.

He proudly told her about his girls, but he reserved his best praise for his second daughter Gianna, also known as Gigi, who played basketball like him.

"That middle one was a monster, she's a beast. She's better than I was at her age. She's got it," he said.

Duncan choked up at this point in her story, as 13-year-old Gianna was killed alongside her father and seven other people when their helicopter crashed on the hills of Calabasas, California.

They were on their way to a basketball game in Thousand Oaks. Gigi was supposed to play while her father would coach.

"The only small source of comfort for me is that he died doing what he loved the most, being a dad. Being a girl dad," Duncan said. —MGP, GMA News