When 17-year-old Kobe Bryant decided to invite his celebrity crush Brandy to his Lower Merion High School prom, nobody thought he could pull it off, writes Anna Orso, Allison Steele, Justine McDaniel, and Alfred Lubrano for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

While Bryant was already a basketball star, an all-American who announced he would not go to college and instead head straight to the NBA, Brandy was still in a league of her own.

She was a platinum artist and a sitcom star that had become a household name nationwide.

So everybody was shocked when she accepted his invitation.

“He asked me to go to the prom with him, and since he was a nice guy,” said Brandy, “I asked my mom, and she said yes.”

When the pair showed up at the Bellevue Hotel, there was a line of reporters waiting to get a glimpse of the glamorous teenagers.

But once inside, the couple were able to enjoy the prom just like everybody else.

“Once they got past the press, people just treated it like, ‘Oh, hi, Brandy,’” said Dan Gross, Bryant’s classmate. “It wasn’t a big spectacle.”

Read more about Kobe Bryant at The Philadelphia Inquirer by clicking here.

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Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on MONTCO Today in January 2020.