Brittney Griner is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the best WNBA players of all time. Today, she is married to her longtime partner and has three children. The Connecticut Sun center and her wife, Cherelle, recently opened up about planning IVF during Griner’s detainment in Russia in 2022.
The athlete has spoken about her time in a Russian prison on multiple occasions, even detailing her experience in a memoir—a powerful piece of adult nonfiction that captures the depth of her ordeal. But what she has revealed continues to shock people, from the horrific surroundings to having no or limited access to basic everyday essentials. Her story is a testament to resilience and freedom struggle.
On Feb. 17, 2022, Griner, who was traveling to Russia to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside of Moscow after Russian customs officials alleged they found cannabis oil vape cartridges in her luggage. Griner had a prescription for cannabis, but since the drug is illegal in Russia, she was arrested and sent to prison.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian labor camp, but she was released from custody on Dec. 8, 2022, through a one-for-one prisoner exchange. The Biden administration secured her freedom by swapping her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who had been serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. prison.
During an interview on Good Morning America in 2024, Griner told Robin Roberts about what it was like sleeping in her cell, sharing, “The mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets. So, you’re basically lying on bars. From the middle of my shin to my feet stuck through the bars … In prison, you don’t really want to stick your leg and arm through bars, you know, because someone could go up and grab it, break it, twist it. And that’s what was going through my mind.”
She added that sometimes the inmates would go without daily necessities, recalling, “There were like two, three months where we didn’t get anything. And the toothpaste had expired 15 years ago. That toothpaste was expired. We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.” These conditions speak to the inhumane treatment she endured during mass incarceration.
In 2025, Griner was a guest on Cam Newton’s Funky Friday Podcast. The 10-time WNBA All-Star described her first few days in confinement before Russian authorities knew which prison she was going to go to, remembering she didn’t have anything at all.
She explained that she was in a room by herself with “no shower, no toilet paper, no toothbrush,” and the “toilet in the room is a hole with feces and urine all over everything.” Griner then admitted, “It was the nastiest I’ve ever felt and been in my life … I didn’t feel human.” These meal prep containers and basic supplies—things many of us take for granted—were completely denied to her.
On top of all that, Griner did not speak the language. So how did she get through it? Over the years, she credited one of her cellmates, Alana, for translating everything for her and insisted, “I wouldn’t have made it without Alana.” Brittney Griner‘s story is one of Black excellence and survival against impossible odds.
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