Brittney Griner talks about the Russian prison, “between blood and spiders: I wanted to commit suicide”

The women's basketball superstar: "To return home they forced me to ask Putin for forgiveness"

ROME – Brittney Griner had to write a letter to Putin to return home to the United States. To ask him for forgiveness. To thank. He had just spent 10 months in Russian prisons. She, the superstar of world women’s basketball. An international diplomatic case: today he plays for the Phoenix Mercury, he is a nine-time Wnba All-Star, he won two Olympic gold medals with the American national team. It’s as if, in short, had arrested LeBron James, and had thrown him in a Russian prison for almost a year. Ablack, gay woman in her second marriage, a proud LGBTQ+ activist.

Report today in an interview with ABC (his memoir, “Coming Home”, will be released on May 7) who thought about committing suicide several times in prison. He didn’t do it, he says, only because he feared that they wouldn’t give the body back to the family.

“I thought about killing myself several times in my first weeks in prison. The mattress had a huge blood stain. They give you these two thin sheets, so you basically lie on the bars. Half of your shin down to your feet is stuck between the bars, but you don’t really want to stick your legs and arms through the bars, because someone will come up and grab them and break them.”

Griner was well known in Russia before her arrest, having won several national titles with Ummc Ekaterinburg. In prison he was known as “The American” and “The Basketball Player”. His second prison, IK-2, was a harsh labor camp. She said she was given one roll of toilet paper a month and a toothpaste that was more than ten years old: she used it to remove mold from the walls of her cell. “There were spiders on my bed making nests in my hair. You have to do what you have to do to survive. Theymade me write this letter. It was in Russian. I had to ask for forgiveness and thank their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to go home.”