It would appear there’s a little more to the brewing Kobe Bryant/Karl Malone feud than first revealed if today’s report by T.J. Simers in the LA Times is to be believed.

Both Bryant and Karl Malone ” speaking through his agent, Dwight Manley ” confirmed Saturday night that they had a major falling out involving Bryant’s wife, Vanessa (above), two weeks before the Bryant radio interview that had supposedly ticked off Malone so much.

Before Saturday night’s game with the Clippers, Bryant listened as I relayed the story that’s going around town, and when I finished, he said, that’s true.

On Nov. 23, the night the Lakers played the Bucks at Staples Center, Vanessa was talking on the phone to Malone’s wife, Kaye. Kaye gave Vanessa her husband’s cellphone number, and Vanessa called Malone, who was sitting at courtside, and invited Malone’s child to join her.

Malone, wearing cowboy boots and a hat, eventually took the child to Vanessa.

Malone hugged Vanessa, and then Vanessa asked ” as Manley recounts this part of the story ” “Hey, cowboy, what are you hunting?”

“She said it twice,” Manley said, “and Karl answered the second time, ‘I’m hunting for little Mexican girls.’ ”

After the game Vanessa told Bryant that Malone had come on to her, and said several inappropriate things. She also told Bryant that she had called Malone’s wife and asked Kaye to get her husband away from her.

Bryant called Malone on his cellphone after the game, and Bryant laid into Malone. Bryant said Malone didn’t have much to say in return and didn’t deny anything.

AFTER I talked to Bryant, I relayed the same story to Manley and asked for the opportunity to talk to Malone and hear his version.

“Karl wants me to give you two messages,” Manley said after calling Malone. “He never hit on Vanessa, nor would he¦. In fact, when he first heard about [the accusation], he said, ‘You have to be kidding me.’

“As for the comments he made to her that offended her personally, he told both her and Kobe that night that he apologized.”

Manley said that after Malone apologized, “Kobe followed that with a string of threats.”

Bryant said he was upset but he said that he made no threats and was only coming to the defense of his wife, and that he told Malone to stay away from his wife.