Ana Sebastian of Guatemala shows a copy of a newspaper with a picture of the late Kobe Bryant at a memorial for the former NBA star near Staples Center on Monday in Los Angeles. (AP photo)

Never one to forget a slight, Bryant was stung by the vitriol.

“I’m just out there trying to play and have a good time,” Bryant said. “My feelings are hurt, being from Philadelphia.”

His local roots meant little to the rowdy crowd that would not forgive Bryant for comments from the previous season when the Los Angeles Lakers played the 76ers in the NBA Finals.

Bryant had warned fans that he wasn’t coming home to relive the glory years at Lower Merion High School. Bryant proclaimed he was “coming to Philly to cut their hearts out.”

Kobe Bryant speaks with students at Andrew Hamilton School in Philadelphia on March 21. Bryant played on the Redeem Team in 2008, the one that delivered a gold medal in Beijing after a series of USA Basketball disappointments in big tournaments. (AP file photo)

The Lakers won the championship in five games, a series that began an unforgiving attitude from Sixers fanatics that continued until Bryant’s final NBA game in the city.

Bryant, killed at 41 in a helicopter crash Sunday, had a turbulent relationship with Philadelphia.

At his old high school in the Philadelphia suburbs, Bryant was a superstar, a friend and a benefactor who never lost ties with his beloved Aces. But after he went head-to-head with 76ers star Allen Iverson, Bryant became the All-Star fans loved to hate. They criticized his tony high school and his adopted LA swagger, saying Bryant was not as blue collar or tough as the city of his birth.

Bryant never apologized for saying he wanted to thrash the 76ers, just as he insisted he never forgot where he came from.

He spent much of his childhood living in Italy where his father, Joe Bryant, played pro basketball for several years. When his family moved back to the United States, Bryant went to Lower Merion High School, in an affluent suburb about 20 minutes west of downtown Philadelphia.

Philly native and former Temple star Marc Jackson, who spent seven seasons in the NBA, remembered Bryant “getting his teeth” kicked in during workouts with college ball prospects. The catch, Bryant was only 12.