Rick Fox Breaks Silence After Rumors He Was Killed in Kobe Bryant Helicopter Crash

Rick Fox is speaking out for the first time following the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and eight others in a Calabasas, Californian helicopter crash. After news of the fatal crash first broke on Sunday, Jan. 26, rumors had sparked that the NBA veteran, who joined the L.A. Lakers the season after Bryant, had also died in the crash. The rumors were quickly dispelled by a statement from Fox's family, though Fox revealed during Tuesday night's Inside the NBA that the rumors had left a devastating effect on his loved ones.

"My family went through, in the midst of all this, something that I couldn't imagine them experiencing," Fox, who joined Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Derek Fisher, and Kenny Smith for the Tuesday night special, said, according to PEOPLE.

Fox added that one of her daughter's "greatest fears" was to learn of his death through social media and that "she, fortunately, called me and we were just talking and crying about the news of Kobe."

Although Fox's daughter's fears were put at ease, others close to him were worried after seeing the rumors circulating online, and he began to receive numerous phone calls, including from his best friend, King Rice.

"I'm seeing King's number repeatedly going and going and going, and I think he's worried about me, so I said, 'I'm gonna talk to my best friend,' so I answered and said, 'Hey man, this is crazy about Kobe,' and he just was bawling," he recalled. "And I started crying. And he was like, 'You're alive!' And I was like, 'Well, yeah. Like what do you mean?' And it was in that moment that my phone just started going, and my mom and my sister and my brother…This has been a lot to process for all of us."

"I'm glad that's over with, but it was hard to deal with because it shook a lot of people in my life," Fox added.

The Sunday helicopter crash, a cause for which has not yet been determined, left a total of nine people dead, with Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and two other children on the Mamba Sports Academy's basketball team among the victims. The group had been on their way to a basketball game when they encountered dense fog, though it remains unclear if the poor weather conditions or a mechanical issue caused the crash.