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Brittney Griner stands in the defendant's cage before a court hearing in Khimki, Russia, on August 2, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
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Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner has had repeated nightmares about returning to Russia and had issues with her paperwork since her release from a Russian penal colony in December 2022.
In her dream, when she went to the Russian embassy to ask for help, she said, “I'm locked right in the cell I was in and there's no way to get back. So I'm right back where I was.” “I spent most of my time there.”
Like many WNBA players, Griner's salary was so low that in the 2014 offseason she began playing for a Russian team whose salary was much better than that of the United States. But on February 17, 2022, a few days before Russia. After the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow airport authorities found two vape cartridges containing small amounts of cannabis oil in Griner's luggage.
Griner was prescribed medical marijuana to relieve chronic pain from a basketball injury, but was detained at the airport and eventually sentenced to nine years in prison. She spent 293 days in Russia before her release as part of a prisoner exchange.
!['I didn't feel like a human being': Brittney Griner tells NPR about Russian detention.](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/05/03/gettyimages-1673856819_sq-35fa96c916b8c0d2881ffacb8d161604dda63c33.jpg?s=100&c=15&f=jpeg)
Griner, who is 6 feet 9 inches tall, says he felt like an animal in a zoo while in prison. “The guards would literally open a peephole and look in and you could hear them laughing and walking down the hallway,” she said.
In prison, Griner watched Russian propaganda on television linking President Biden to the Nazi Party and brushed his teeth with toothpaste that had expired in 2007. [the toothpaste] Because it helps kill mold on the walls,” she says.
Griner is preparing for his second season after reuniting with his team, the Phoenix Mercury. she she She wrote about her life in basketball and incarceration in her memoir. Come back home.
Interview Highlights
![Coming Home, Brittney Griner](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/05/07/71fi68oausl._sl1500__custom-75e12e7b92bddd2600d1a2deefb0c8796a19ba6b.jpg?s=1100&c=50&f=jpeg)
About getting infected with COVID-19 right before leaving for Russia in February 2022 and feeling bad about the trip.
There were so many signs telling us not to go. But… I was raised with the moral of finishing what you start. And I never want to put my teammates in a bad position. As always, we were on the verge of winning the EuroLeague and the Russian League. So I just wanted to finish it to the end.
At the Moscow airport when she was detained
![Why Brittany Griner went to Russia and what it has to do with American women's basketball](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/03/07/gettyimages-1347138570_sq-283c83992abc654a6d0e93bdd9b95a137f31f706.jpg?s=100&c=15&f=jpeg)
I have made this trip several times a season. It comes back two or three times within a season. [I’ve] I was there for 8 years. So I've never seen that much security. … It was very random. And it seemed like everyone who was pulled aside was either American or non-Russian. And all the Russians were basically going through the center unchecked. …
[Getting detained was] Life changes. I've definitely had moments of horrible thought, like never seeing my family, being dragged through the media and news outlets, everyone giving their opinion and all the naysayers have the ammunition to start spewing all this out. me.
About life in a Russian prison
There are three toilets and one shower room that can accommodate more than 50 women. Then there is no hot water. I had a bucket and a ladle. So you would take a kettle, like a tea kettle, heat the water in the sink and pour it into a bowl, a bucket. Take the bucket and ladle into the shower. All you have to do is squat down in the shower and scoop it up. This is how you shower and you have about 5 minutes. Because there are about 10 or 12 other women waiting in the bathroom to get into the shower.
About how the despair she experienced in prison reminded her of the isolation she experienced as a child.
There were girls who would come up to me at school and touch my breasts and laugh and giggle and say, “Oh, he's not really a girl. He's a boy. Listen to his voice. Look how big he is.” So just deal with it separately. And this is all before sports. Before I was an amazing athlete, I was weird and very different.
![Brittney Griner says she will play in the upcoming WNBA season.](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/12/16/ap22077663650244_sq-ae50317df9e25f4f49a90420834d246a873808d2.jpg?s=100&c=15&f=jpeg)
[In prison] … It was like that scene again. I at first [went] I was isolated in a military cell, and bad thoughts began to creep in. My life is over. … Who will be alive when I come out? Are your parents still there? Can my wife and I survive 9 years in captivity? All kinds of bad thoughts started coming in and I felt like maybe it would be better if I wasn't here.
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/05/07/gettyimages-1234556490-2814c3d7cc82ff2f119e1996879518e7f4adca0a.jpg?s=1100&c=50&f=jpeg)
Griner will compete for Team USA on August 8, 2021, during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Griner won gold medals in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.
Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
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Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
Griner will compete for Team USA on August 8, 2021, during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Griner won gold medals in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.
Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
About being reunited with his wife after being released from prison.
We need to learn to be together, but we also need to take some time away from each other to heal. Some of the things we used to love to do have changed. I loved being home and in my room all day. I loved watching TV and watching shows all day. And that triggered me. Because all I could do in the detention center was sit in bed all day, except for an hour outside. So I couldn't do that anymore. … We keep our homes cold. I don't like being cold anymore. I was agitated, I had just come home from work… and we realized I was cold and locked in that cell again. So it was like a little thing. And we made the right fix.
As she returns to basketball
![Why haven't NCAA fans always followed the WNBA? Sue Bird has her own theory.](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/01/gettyimages-1413663793_sq-412d46314a3eceb072e74b7fbf710a3c28402fc1.jpg?s=100&c=15&f=jpeg)
I think it would have been a lot harder if I had waited longer to start over. Honestly, I knew I had to start getting in shape if I wanted to get back in the game. I knew I couldn't wait any longer. And I believed in my team and I believed in myself. They did everything they could to help me get back on the court. I was glad I did it. … Now I definitely feel 100% similar to my old self.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper, and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.