Podcaster Pablo Torre has produced a bombshell report regarding LeBron James’ attendance at Kobe Bryant’s 2020 memorial – citing multiple sources who suggested he was not there.

It has been a long-running debate whether or not James attended the memorial service following the tragic helicopter crash that killed Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others on board.

And amid his recent feud with James, Stephen A. Smith decided to broach the subject, saying that the Lakers star was not at Bryant’s service before apologizing and retracting his claim.

Nonetheless, Smith’s initial accusation led Torre –  formerly of ESPN and now of Meadowlark Media – to investigate the claim on his eponymous podcast, and his report casted serious doubt on the idea that James was in attendance.

Torre cited two ‘high level’ sources involved in the planning of the event, who were in attendance and said they did not see James.

‘There’s no f***ing way he was there,’ one said. ‘If he was there, he was Casper the Ghost.’

It has been widely debated whether or not LeBron James attended Kobe Bryant’s memorial

Pablo Torre produced a report casting major doubt on the idea that James was there

Lakers legend Bryant died in 2020 in a tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of eight others

One claim surrounding the event, which James was not photographed at, is that there was some sort of directive to leave him off the television broadcast.

However, a lead producer of the event, Renato Basile, told Pablo Torre Finds Out: ‘The off-camera thing is bulls***.’

Another moment that fans have pointed to as evidence of James being there is when Diana Taurasi made a joke about the player before appearing to gesture towards him in the crowd.

However, Torre looked at camera angles from where James would have been sitting (based on Taurasi’s gesture), and he was not seen in the crowd at various points of the service.

Furthermore, Torre confirmed with several sources that Taurasi never actually saw James that day.

Several sources also told Torre that James was not invited to speak at Bryant’s memorial. James’ representatives did not return a request for comment from Pablo Torre Finds Out, and noted they were not discussing anything related to Smith.

Reports at the time suggested that James was in attendance, though he was not pictured

Stephen A. Smith has been feuding with James and initially claimed that he didn’t attend Bryant’s memorial, before retracting his claims

All told, Torre’s fact-checking – which involved eight sources – was slammed by certain fans online, though he insisted afterwards that he was not making any sort of judgement. 

‘This isn’t a moral question about whether LeBron should’ve been anywhere,’ he wrote on X. ‘It’s fact-checking a simple question that has been incorrectly reported and argued about — behind the scenes, and now in public — for a half-decade.’

Reports at the time suggested that James was in attendance.

The LA Times wrote on February 24 , 2020: ‘Among the Lakers-related faces in the audience: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Phil Jackson, Jerry West, Rick Fox and LeBron James. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors was there, as was retired Boston Celtics star Bill Russell. Other NBA players who were on hand included James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Kuzma and Demar DeRozan.’

At the time, James’ agent, Rich Paul, cryptically said that his client had spent the day of the memorial ‘in his own space.’

After he was widely criticized for his claim that James was not in attendance at the memorial, Smith apologized on X.

‘My apologies and clarification. I misspoke in Hour#1 of @FirstTake today when I intimated that LeBron did not attend Kobe Bryant ‘s memorial. I corrected myself in Hour#2 when I acknowledged he was indeed in attendance,’ he wrote.

‘My mistake. Should not have even broached that subject. It was not my main point. I retract NOTHING else that I said. Have a nice day!’