Frantic text messages and bloody sheets: Brittney Griner shares harrowing details of Russian prison odyssey
Brittney Griner, the WNBA star whose 2022 arrest in Moscow sparked international condemnation, says she was holding it together until she saw her wife Cherelle’s face.
Griner, 33, was taken into custody after cannabis oil cartridges were found in her luggage in February 2022 at a Moscow-area airport, and later sentenced to nine years in Russian prison. At that point, she was allowed a video chat with her wife.
”I was holding it together until I saw her face,” Ms Griner told ABC’s 20/20 in an interview that aired on Wednesday night. “I just broke.”
It was the culmination of half a year’s worth of anxiety and doubt, a fear that began when officials seized Ms Griner’s passport at the airport.
The WNBA star knew she was in serious trouble, and frantically tried to send text messages to Cherelle, who was asleep at the time.
“If you don’t hear from me for like one hour or more get my agent on the phone. Wake up plz,” one message read.
“Baby text me plz. I’m freaking out,” read another.
One of the last messages was the most jarring: “This is it for me.”
“Honestly it was probably the most alarming thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Cherelle Griner told 20/20. “It was panic in the messages and there were so many of them.”
The alarm would not abate once Ms Griner’s sentence was known. In November, she was transferred to a penal colony, and her location was initially unknown.
As the WNBA star headed to serve out her sentence, she feared for what was in store.
“I was just so scared for everything,” she told host Robin Roberts through tears. “There was so much unknown.”
Conditions during her time in Russian prison were harrowing.
In pretrial detention, Ms Griner said she was given toothpaste that expired 15 years ago and forced to live in a cell with black mould and a bloody mattress.
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