Brittney Griner Describes Her Life in Russian Confinement

She went from being the center of attention in women’s professional basketball to the center of a global power struggle. Two years after she was first detained in Russia, Brittney Griner is sharing new details about her time in prison and the fight to free her. It’s all in her new book, Coming Home, which is out tomorrow. Amna Nawaz recently met up with Griner at the YMCA of Greater New York for a rare TV interview.

All be [inaudible 00:00:28]

No, short. I’m off now.

Here I got you.

It’s all you.

See, I did my job.

[inaudible 00:00:30].

You shot, I got the rebound, I put up.

For basketball superstar Brittney Griner, better known as BG, the court has always been a safe space.

And even walking in, the smell of the floor and the hardwood, it just felt natural. It felt home. It felt like the beginning of basketball for me.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Griner was a breakout star at Baylor University. Dunking her way to fame and a pro career with the Phoenix Mercury, six WNBA All-Star appearances and two Olympic gold medals. But for Griner, standing tall at six-foot-eight, meant standing out.

Basketball.

Basketball.

You talk so openly, so honestly in your book about what it took to get you comfortable in your own skin.

Mm-hmm.

You wrote, “When you’re born in a body like mine, a part of you dies every day, with every mean comment and lingering stare. You’re the biggest person in the room, but you’re also the loneliest.”

Mm-hmm.

Did basketball help with that?

Basketball definitely helped. It gave me a purpose. It gave me an outlet too. When I’m frustrated, it gave me somewhere to go and channel that energy in a positive way. And it gave me camaraderie as well, my teammates, my coaches. That sense of feeling wanted from the fans. All that helped me. Once I started playing basketball, it really changed my life.

Basketball took her overseas, like many women players, for a second job during the WNBA off season.

[foreign language 00:02:01].

Since 2014, Griner played for European powerhouse team, UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia. You really loved playing in Russia. Tell me why.

I did. I mean, one, the pay gap is pretty big from here to overseas and just feeling valued like that meant a lot to me. And then just how they treated us, our safety, the way we flew, where we stayed at. I mean, we stayed at the best hotels, we flew on private jets and we really felt like professional athletes.

How different was that to how you were treated here in the States?

Definitely different. You might catch me on a United or Southwest or Delta flight, maybe middle row. It just depends. I was definitely overseas because that’s where I was able to make a living for my family.

The State Department says it’s aware of the arrest of an American in Moscow.

Everything changed in 2022.

Russian customs officials claim they detected cannabis oil in her luggage.

On February 17th, as she returned to Russia to rejoin her team, Griner was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport outside of Moscow, when vape cartridges with less than a gram of hashish oil, illegal in Russia, were found in her luggage. Griner has a prescription for medical marijuana in the US, but forgot to remove the cartridges while packing in a rush. You almost didn’t make that flight. You were running late. You lost your phone. You got held up, missed your connection. Does any part of you look back on that day now and think, gosh, if only I’d done X, if only I’d done Y?

Every single part of it.

There’s this idea of guilt through your book. You worry about what your mom and dad went through while you were away, what Relle went through, what your teammates were going through. Has that guilt gone away?

I think it’s always going to be there a little bit and that’s just my character, that’s who I am. Because at the end of the day-

But why?

Huh?

Why?

It’s on me. As much as everything was an accident and not intended, it is on me. It was my fault. There were so many signs and I really wanted to stay back honestly. But my dad, you finish what you start. And we were basically about to win Euro League and going to win Russian League as well, like we have in the past for many years. So I wanted to finish that chapter completely.

Hi, Brittney. How are you?

Instead, a new surreal chapter in her life began, detention in a Russian prison. Her face and story splashed across international headlines and robbed of the one safe space she’d always had. When you weren’t able to play, what did that feel like?

That was hard. It was really hard not being able to play, not knowing what was to come. If I would ever pick up a basketball professionally again. It was devastating to me to think about.

BG took the time to write President Biden.

Back home, her devastated wife Cherelle led the charge to free BG. Working with her teammates, her agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, and an army rallying behind the We are BG hashtag. You write that, “The campaign had to make me visible in a world where Black women are often ignored or demeaned. It had to make me relatable. Yes, I’m Black, gay, a female baller, but when people saw my face and heard my story, we needed them to say, ‘Hey, she’s me.'” Were you worried about being able to do that?

Definitely. I mean, in a world where you’re judged by just appearance or maybe what a certain group has done or someone has wronged them, so they condemn everyone that looks like them. I was definitely worried. I was definitely worried about the public opinion and how people would react.

Griner meanwhile could do nothing but wait and survive.

It makes you not want to fight. It makes you give up hope. I mean, I’m sitting in court and I’m trying to plead, but I’m already locked up. I’m already in a cage. I talked about feeling like a zoo animal, especially how the guards would come and just open the little peephole to see me and then I hear the snickering going down the hallway. I was a spectacle.

That feeling of feeling like they’re all watching you, like you’re a spectacle. Was that something you’d ever felt before?

Definitely. Growing up, I definitely felt like a spectacle. I remember in junior high, the girls coming up to me and literally talking to somebody else, touch my chest and say, “Oh, see, she’s not really a real girl. She has no chest. Listen to her voice.” So I’ve always been that spectacle of pointing and looking at. It was already a depressing and challenging time and it just made it even worse.

You were detained on February 17th. It was on February 24th that Russia invaded Ukraine. Do you believe that you were being held as a bargaining chip?

100%. There’s no doubt in my mind that once they knew who I was and they had me, that I’m your valued target. I’m your valued bargaining chip. You don’t feel like a human anymore. I didn’t feel like my life was mine. It was in someone else’s hands. It was in other people’s hands. It’s a feeling that I never want to feel ever again.

Where do you go in your head in those moments? What do you tell yourself? What do you do?

I did a lot of gazing out of the windows to the point where I could make the bars disappear and I would just see land. Because that’s my sanctuary. I love being in nature. Once I got to the penal colony to go outside, well, right outside the cell, walking to the workstation, just admiring the distance behind the walls, behind everything. Did a lot of looking up at the birds.

What’d you think when you saw those birds outside the cell?

It must be nice to be able to fly away.

A Russian court eventually sentenced Griner to nine years in prison. In part two of our interview tomorrow, she shares the grueling conditions inside a notorious Russian labor camp. The moment she’ll never forget once she was freed. And what life ahead looks like for her and her wife, Cherelle. That’s part two of Amna’s conversation with Brittany Griner tomorrow night on the NewsHour.