Brittney Griner is opening up about her time in a Russian prison, from the harrowing conditions she faced to how she felt she “let everybody down.”
In a 20/20 interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts ahead of the release of her new book, Coming Home, Griner, 33, shared more about her 10-month ordeal than she has ever publicly disclosed.
ABC aired a preview of the interview on Wednesday, May 1, in a segment on Good Morning America. In the clip, Griner takes viewers through the day she was detained, from a rushed morning packing to the moment she realized her mistake.
“How was I this absent-minded?” she recalled asking herself. “I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.”
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On February 17, 2022, Griner was detained in a Russia airport for possessing 0.7 grams of hash oil, which is legal in her home state of Arizona but illegal in Russia. She was later sentenced to nine years at a labor camp.
Griner likened her mistake to misplacing her keys or searching for your glasses while they’re on top of your head — an honest lapse in judgment that people make every day.
“Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale, but it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,” she said.
At that moment, she felt a sense of guilt to her family and teammates. An emotional Griner said she is still working through those feelings.
“At the end of the day, it’s my fault, and I let everybody down,” she said through tears.
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Simply forgetting that she was carrying two cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil landed her in a prison where she did not speak the language and had to face unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
Griner recalled sleeping on a mattress with “a huge blood stain on it,” with the lower half of her legs sticking through the bars beneath the bed. When Roberts, 63, brought up that Griner was given just one roll of toilet paper per month, Griner added that there were some months when prisoners received none at all. Their toothpaste, she said, was 15 years past its expiration date.
“We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls,” Griner said.
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The harrowing conditions even affected her hair. Griner was known for her long dreadlocks, but in prison, they became a hazard. She eventually cut her hair, and with it, lost part of her WNBA identity.
“My dreads started to freeze,” she said. “They would just stay wet and cold, and I was getting sick. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.”
Roberts closed the segment by adding that Griner called her experience “dehumanizing.”
Griner was released on December 8, 2022, in a prisoner exchange with the United States for arms dealer Viktor Bout. She returned to the basketball court in time for the 2023 WNBA season.
Prison in Russia: The Brittney Griner Interview airs on ABC Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET.
