Kobe and Vanessa Bryant's house may not be squeaky clean.
NBA housecleaning usually happens after the playoffs, but not for Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant and his wife Vanessa Bryant. Their former housekeeper, 48-year-old Maria Jimenez, has sued them, claiming they harassed and humiliated her and failed to provide the health insurance they'd promised her. While everyone thinks of Vanessa as a victim of infidelity, Jimenez paints a different, stinkier picture. She alleges that Vanessa verbally abused and demeaned her, once ordering her to "put her hand in a bag of dog feces to retrieve the price tag for [a] blouse." (Note: We're left to wonder if this is what Kobe meant when he told Marc Ecko that he doesn't like dog shit.)
Legal proceedings will determine if any of this is true or just a woman's attempt to get paid to shut up, but it wouldn't be the first time an athlete had a crazy wife. With this mess in mind, Complex presents the six craziest athlete wives. And for anyone who's about to go ape shit when they don't see Craig Hodges's wife Carlita (doused him with gasoline and threw lit matches at him) or Nick Harper's wife Daniell (attacked him with a knife), we're talking non-domestic abuse crazy. We've learned you can't throw punch lines at crazy violent women without getting arrested...
SHERRIE DALY (JOHN DALY)
• Aside from allegedly attacking John with a steak knife in 2007, his fourth wife pleaded guilty to a federal charge involving a drug ring and an illegal gambling operation in November 2004 and was sentenced to a five-month prison term. She was already caught up in dirt as early as 1996 and met John in 2001, or we'd gladly make a joke about the alcoholic golfer's liquid assets running low.
ANNA BENSON (KRIS BENSON)
• While Kris was pitching for the New York Mets in 2004-05, his ex stripper wife told Howard Stern she'd sleep with everyone on the team (including the ball boys) if her husband ever cheated on her, showed up to the organization's Christmas party dressed like a cast member from XXX-Mas Cums Early and snidely said that Dominican General Manager Omar Minaya was putting together an all-Latino team. You know your wife is crazy when a professional baseball team that has dealt with scandals ranging from cocaine to steroids trades you because they can't deal with her insanity anymore.
JANET JONES (WAYNE GRETZKY)
• This former actress and dancer won the lotto when she wifed the Great One in 1988. It turned out she liked games of chance a little bit too much, though. In February 2006, Janet and several NHL players were linked to a New Jersey-based sports gambling ring (the NHL forbids anyone associated with it to gamble). To her credit, she did try to shield Wayne from the scandal. For not snitching, we'll just say she's "crazy... in love."
JACKIE CHRISTIE (DOUG CHRISTIE)
• Jackie stands by her man—literally. When Doug was playing for the Toronto Raptors from 1996-2000, his overprotective/suspicious/insecure wife accompanied him during interviews with certain female reporters to be sure there was no funny business. She also felt uncomfortable with female Raptors staffers having access to the players' locker room, so Doug changed clothes in a separate locker room. As crazy as these practices are (and we haven't even mentioned the wretchedly romantic hand signals or annual marriage ceremony), nothing trumps the time a young female fan in Toronto approached Doug for an autograph and a kiss and Jackie summoned the voice of Beelzebub and screamed on her. She shoots for three (sixes)... nothing but net!
BRENDA WARNER (KURT WARNER)
• Back when Kurt was with the St. Louis Rams in 1998-2003 and losing, his ex Marine wife used to call talk radio programs and bark on the media and Kurt's coaches. Fine, but why'd she have to look like female Johhny Unitas while doing it?
