The ReidOut/MSNBC
In her first cable interview since coming back home, Brittney Griner shared details about her experience in a Russian labor camp.
When she arrived in Russia to play basketball during the WNBA off-season in 2022, Griner was arrested when cannabis cartridges were found in her luggage. She maintains that she mistakenly packed them with her clothing and is aware of Russian law.
While the mistake seemed harmless, Griner found herself detained for several months while she awaited a final sentencing. Complicating matters was the ongoing war in Ukraine, likely leading Russia’s government to be more strict toward the American athlete.
Though she was eventually sentenced to nine years in a labor camp, she was eventually freed when the U.S. government agreed to swap Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for her. In total, she spent 10 months in detainment.
On MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Griner said she knew the war would complicate her situation and prepared for the worst.
“That changed everything,” Griner said. “Any sliver of hope that I had that we could come to some kind of agreement or a trade or something quietly, that all went out the window. When they invaded, I knew that — that was another moment of that ‘whoosh’ feeling, that sunken, just, it’s all over. I was like, ‘This is it.’ Like, there’s no way now… I was like, ‘Well, I need to get prepared for the long haul.””
Being a Black queer woman also heightened her anxiety. Griner added that at one point, guards tried to place in a cell designated for men.
“I was terrified when I was thinking about going to that jail,” she said, “because I was like, ‘What game are they going to play?’ And I soon found out one of the games, trying to tell me to go into one of the men’s cells. And I’m like, ‘I’m not going in that cell.’ And then the other guard said something in Russian and shook his hand, and then they take me to the women’s side. And I was just like, ‘See, it’s a game, you know?’ And I knew all that was stacked against me.”
Even when placed in the proper cell, Griner still felt uncomfortable with how she was viewed in the prison.
“They definitely knew who I was, because I would hear little things like ‘the American,’ ‘the basketball American,’” she said. “And it was just, I would see the little hole where they could see you. They would lift that up all the time, all hours of the night. I would hear it go up and down and snickering and the laughing. And I’m like, ‘Ok, I’m the zoo animal today.’”
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