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LOS ANGELES. — LA Lakers champion Kobe Bryant died on Sunday aged 41 in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles.

The tragedy killed nine people, including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gigi

Talk show hosts — Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien — paid tribute to Kobe, branding him “funny”, “charming” and a “hero”.

An emotional Jimmy Kimmel paid tribute to the late Kobe Bryant during Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, as he filmed without a studio audience to honour the NBA star.

Kimmel said: “Tonight’s show is going to be different from our usual show. We don’t have a studio audience here tonight because going forward with a comedy show didn’t feel right considering what happened yesterday.”

He added that the death of Bryant, his daughter and seven others in the helicopter crash on Sunday was, “a punch in the gut for many of us”.

“Kobe was, and I know this might not make sense, but he was just the last person you could ever imagine something like this happening to,” Kimmel said.

The late night talk show host described Bryant as a “hero”, but not in the same sense as firefighters, doctors and nurses because there are, more important things than basketball.

Almost everything is more important.

Kimmel added that the city “watched him grow up here”, adding that, unlike most athletes, he only wore two uniforms, “for the Lakers and for the United States Olympic Team”, which he won two gold medals in 2008 and 2012.

“He’s someone almost everyone in the city loved. And not just Lakers fans. Everyone would light up when they saw him,” Kimmel added.

The talk show host added that Bryant had numerous interests outside of sports, adding that he sent him a book to read when he was injured, “and to my surprise he read it and then called me to discuss it in maniacal detail. He wanted to know everything about it.”

Kimmel added a more personal story as well, stating that when his son Billy had his heart surgery, Bryant, “made a point” to meet him after he was out of the hospital, adding, “from time to time he would check in to see how he was doing”.

Kimmel acknowledge that, “he was not a perfect person” and that he did not intend to, “canonise him or make judgments about things I don’t know anything about”.

“But I will say he loved his family, he worked very hard, and he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people in this city and we’re going to miss him,” Kimmel said.

He then asked the viewing audience to pray for Bryant’s wife Vanessa, “for the three girls Kobe left behind who lost their father and their sister, and for his friends who were on that flight with him”.

The Altobelli family, Christina Mauser’s family, the Chester family, Sarah Zobayan, the pilot.’

He added there is, “no silver lining” in Bryant’s death, adding: “He was a bright light. And that’s how I want to remember him.’

“He was on the show 15 times.”

He concluded by stating: “Please wish a warm taco Tuesday to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.” “The guy opened the door and we walked out with five cases of beer and saved the party.”— www.dailymail.co.uk