LOS ANGELES: For obvious reasons, Vanessa Williams doesn’t have much to say about the ongoing Kobe Bryant situation. But the singer-actress, who is married to Bryant’s Laker teammate Rick Fox, is offering a perspective on it. While Bryant hasn’t missed out on much in life, Williams feels he would have been better served if he had gone to college instead of going from high school to the pros. She says college is a time “to figure out who you are,” and be able to “go through experiences that are not covered by the press.”

By contrast, she notes Bryant has “been a professional since he was 18,” which means he didn’t get the chance to develop friendships and grow personally the way most young men do. Williams says there was a lot she didn’t know about life behind-the-scenes in the NBA and that’s a good thing. She says her husband wasn’t one to fill her in on all of the female drama that went on with players on the team. She says she was “quite naive” about life on the road in the NBA. Williams says she still doesn’t know a whole lot about what happens and she’s fine with that. She says if her entire life was wrapped up in being a player’s wife, hearing about all that stuff “could be devastating.”