Less than two years ago, WNBA star Brittney Griner began her nine-year sentence in a penal colony in Russia, sewing uniforms for the Russian army and living on rotten food. She lived to get a glimpse of the sky. She’s never been further from the sport that made her a household name. A smoking habit she had picked up in prison had diminished her lung capacity. She rarely heard from her wife, Cherelle, or her family and friends, and she had no idea when – or if – she would come home.
Griner was arrested at Moscow airport in February 2022, when authorities found two vape cartridges in her backpack containing 0.7 grams of cannabis oil. (To treat Griner’s chronic pain, an Arizona doctor prescribed medical marijuana, but that was against the law in Russia.) She was charged with possessing illegal drugs and smuggling “a significant quantity” of narcotics in the country and was sent to prison. .
In December, after 10 months of detention in Russia, she was finally released. She started playing again, thinking routine and familiarity would ground her. But the transition was difficult and she is only now back in shape. On May 7, she will publish her memoir, “Coming Home,” detailing her ordeal.
Here are the highlights from my basketball star profile after meeting her at a practice facility in Phoenix.
She endured dehumanizing treatment
In the cell where she was first held, a hole in the floor, stained with feces, served as a toilet. The prison guards brought her milky porridge with a piece of oily fish which made her sick. She had no way to clean herself: no towels, soap, toothpaste, shampoo or deodorant. She tore T-shirts into several pieces: for her teeth, for her body, for toilet paper.
“I’ve never been so dirty in my life,” she said. The degradation would push her to consider suicide.
Griner, an openly gay professional athlete, is nearly seven feet tall. The prison guards looked at her body and questioned her gender. The treatment brought back memories of bullying from his childhood. Every time she was transported to the doctor or a court date, she was forced to sit in a cage too small for her size. Once, a guard locked Griner’s wrists together, then chained the padlock to the guard’s wrist. Griner felt like a dog on a leash. She was forced to undress and be photographed naked by doctors.
Griner began smoking up to a pack a day. She transformed herself physically, losing muscle mass and gaining weight from food products, such as packaged noodles, muffins, salami and condensed milk. She felt depressed and even the sit-ups in her cell seemed beyond her abilities.
Cutting your hair was a rare moment of action
After her initial detention, Griner was transferred to a women’s detention center about two hours from Moscow.
When images of Griner were first broadcast around the world, her long locks of hair were shorn, which appeared to be an indication of the cruelty she was enduring. But Griner told me that cutting his hair was actually a rare moment of action during his imprisonment. The prison was barely heated and his hair was never completely dried. She was worried about catching pneumonia, so she decided to cut them off. “The cut was horrible but not as bad as it could have been,” she told me, laughing.
Nibbler I personally appealed to Biden
Griner wrote a letter to President Biden that was sent on July 4, begging him not to forget her. “Please do whatever you can to bring us home,” she said. “I still have so much good to do with my freedom that you can help me restore.” » Dennis Rodman (publicly) and Donald Trump (privately) they said they would fly to Russia to get it back. (Neither.)
Griner’s most dedicated and persistent defenders were black women, many of whom argued online that their government’s response seemed muted. Thousands of people sent messages to Griner in prison.
A guard slipped her a note saying she was going home
In late November, about a month after being transferred to a penal colony 300 kilometers from Moscow, Griner received a call from the American embassy. They said discussions were underway for a prisoner exchange. She was excited but cautious. On December 2, she was loaded into a cage and transported to a men’s prison, where she feared she would have to serve the remainder of her sentence.
That night, a guard slipped her a note informing her that she was going home. The next morning, she boarded a plane without knowing where it was going. The plane landed in Abu Dhabi. Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, greeted her. In that moment, Griner knew she was really going home.
She suffered from PTSD after returning
In prison, Griner had one goal: freedom. At home, she felt adrift. She was determined to return to basketball, completing a rigorous 100-day training program and joining her WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury. But her 2023 season was uneven and she experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Therapy taught him that there is no more “before.”
As she prepares for the next season, she likes to head into the mountains near her home in Phoenix. “It’s something very important to me: getting away from screens and cameras.”
