Olympia Brittney Griner
Baby joy for US basketball star and her wife after prison ordeal in Russia
Status: 09:27 am | Reading time: 2 minutes
Brittney Griner (left) and her wife Cherelle after a game of their club Phoenix Mercury
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa/AP/Ross D. Franklin
Brittney Griner was in prison in Russia. For her, it was martyrdom. Now she is experiencing pure happiness. Because her wife gave birth to their first child.
Brittney Griner, the US basketball player who was formerly imprisoned in Russia, and her wife Cherelle have become parents for the first time. Wife Cherelle (31) gave birth to a son on July 8, as 33-year-old Griner told the podcast “She Knows Sports”.
Brittney and Cherelle Griner met more than ten years ago when they attended Baylor University in Texas from 2009 to 2013, but they did not become a couple until some time later. In April, the couple, who have been married since June 2019, announced their pregnancy on Instagram.
“He’s here. He weighs 3.5 kilos. This is my husband. He is incredible. They say that as soon as you see him, everything that was important to you just goes away. And that is literally what happens,” said Griner, who is aiming to win her third Olympic gold with the US team in Paris. She is thrilled to be “a dad” now. The fact that she won’t be able to see her son for a while is annoying: “But he will understand. My whole phone has turned into him now.”
Happiness after a time of suffering
In addition to her WNBA career, Griner had also played for the Russian club UGMK Yekaterinburg before she was arrested at Moscow airport in February 2022 on drug possession charges. She had vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. She was in prison for almost ten months and was sentenced to nine years for drug smuggling and possession.
Here you will find content from Instagram
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, since the providers of the embedded content as third-party providers require this consent [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this at . You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and via privacy at the bottom of the page.
In December 2022, Griner was released as part of a prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. US President Joe Biden also campaigned for her release. In her book “Coming Home,” she shared details of her harrowing experiences in Russia.
also read
“In the first few weeks, I wanted to take my own life more than once,” Griner said. “I didn’t think I could go through what I had to go through. But then I asked myself, what would happen if they didn’t release my body to my family? And I thought to myself: I can’t ask them to do that. I have to endure it.”
also read
Griner is now back on the hunt for points for the Phoenix Mercury in the women’s elite WNBA league.
