By Mark Gray
10:01am PDT, May 5, 2024
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WNBA star Brittney Griner faced some dark thoughts in 2022 after she was arrested on drug-related charges and later sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison. However, she refrained from self harm because she didn't trust Russian authorities to release her body. "I felt like leaving here so badly," the basketball star told ABC News in a May 2024 interview. As an inmate, Brittney said, she felt "less than human."
In addition to sharing her innermost thoughts, the Phoenix Mercury player and two-time Olympian also painted a horrifying picture of what life was like in prison camps in Moscow and in the town of Yavas.
Read on for more information on her prison experience, and to see the text message she sent her wife immediately after being detained in a Moscow airport…MORE:
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After being stopped by customs agents at a Moscow airport in February 2022 for having a cannabis oil cartridge in her luggage, Brittney Griner texted her wife the following messages:
"Hey baby I got stopped by security at customs"
"If you don't hear from me for like one hour or more get my agent on the phone"
"Wake up plz"
"Baby text me plz I'm freaking out"
"Baby"
"Yo"
"Baby"
"Hello"
"This is it for me"
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As she was being arrested at the Moscow airport in February 2022, Brittney Griner quickly realized that things were bad.
She told ABC News in May 2024, "My whole heart just fell out of my body. Just this overpowering feeling of like an elevator dropped from underneath my feet. I'm just like, my life is over right here. In the midst of them going through my bags, there's two cartridges. And I'm just like, 'Oh my God, how did I make this mistake?' … I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away."
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While locked up in Russia, Brittney Griner was forced to write a letter to the country's president, Vladimir Putin.
"They made me write this letter. It was in Russian," she said. "I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn't want to do it, but at the same time, I wanted to come home."
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When Brittney Griner first arrived in her prison cell, she noticed a "big-a** knife" had been left for her. She quickly realized the knife wasn't for her to use on others but rather on herself.
"When we walk into the cell, there's a bathroom. There's a little rinkity sink that leaks and then just add a layer of dust, dirt, grime, blood stains — just filth," she said. "I had a couple of shirts, a couple of pairs of sweats, the shoes on my feet. One of my shirts, I ripped it up and I used one to clean myself. I used one as my toilet paper. With my dirty, dirty hole in the ground with feces all over it. That was the moment where I just felt the dirtiest and, like, less than a human."
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Prisoners were allowed to go outside and spend time on the prison grounds, but that was an unpleasant experience.
"You're supposed to have 15 minutes outside. Fifteen minutes sometimes is two hours. It's a blizzard. It's cold. It's winter. You're getting snowed on," Brittney Griner said. "And those days were the toughest because it's like, 'Yo, come get us.' We're yelling. We're screaming. We're rattling the bars, get us in the house, get us in."
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After Brittney Griner was caught with a cannabis oil cartridge at the Moscow airport in February 2022, she was sentenced to nine years in prison.
In December 2022, she was freed in a 1-for-1 prison swap (Russia got arms dealer Viktor Bout).
Brittany was upset that the swap didn't include Paul Whelan, an American Marine currently detained in Russia for allegedly spying. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2018.
"I walked on [the airplane] and didn't see him, maybe he's next. Maybe they will bring him next," she said of what was going through her head at the time. "They closed the door and I was like, 'Are you serious? You're not going to let this man come home now?'"
