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Brittney Griner spent 10 months imprisoned in Russia after being arrested for bringing drugs into the country, and she’s decided to open up about the harrowing experience while candidly discussing just how hopeless she felt during the ordeal.
I’m going to assume most people are familiar with the saga that began to unfold when Brittney Griner was detained in Russia in February 2022 after authorities discovered hash oil cartridges she’d inadvertently packed in her luggage before heading to the country to rejoin UMMC Ekaterinburg, the team she’d been playing with since 2015.
Her arrest sparked a bit of an international incident, as the United States government unsuccessfully lobbied for her release prior to a trial that ended with her being sentenced to nine years in prison. Thankfully, the saga came to an end toward the beginning of December when she arrived back in America as part of a prisoner swap involving Viktor Bout (the arms dealer who inspired the movie Lord of War).
Griner was understandably hesitant to revisit the situation in depth in the immediate wake of her return, but she recently decided to sit down with Robin Roberts around a year and a half after the saga came to an end prior to the release of Coming Home, the memoir chronicling the ordeal.
During the conversation, Griner shed light on the subhuman conditions she was forced to endure while in prison, which included a cell filled with black mold and a mattress covered in blood. She added she was also given a single roll of toilet paper each month (if she was lucky) and received a tube of toothpaste that had expired 15 years prior.
Griner admitted she contemplated a desperate measure to end her misery, admitting, “I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks. I felt like leaving here so badly.” However, she admitted part of the reason she ultimately decided to push forward was her concern that Russian authorities wouldn’t return her body to her family.
Heavy stuff.