‘I felt like leaving so badly’: Brittney Griner considered suicide in Russian prison |

Brittney Griner said she thought about killing herself during her first few weeks in a Russian jail after her 2022 arrest on drug-related charges.

The WNBA star spoke for the first time about her months-long detention in Russia during an ABC interview that aired on Wednesday night in the US. Her memoir, Coming Home, will be released on 7 May.

Griner was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. She later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC. “I felt like leaving here so badly.” She decided against doing so in part because she was afraid the Russian authorities wouldn’t release her body to her family.

Griner said she had packed the cannabis oil in error due to a “mental lapse”, similar to misplacing car keys but on “a more grand scale.”

The 33-year-old said she was shocked by conditions at her first prison, known as IK-1. Griner, who is 6ft 9in, said her height made her stay even more uncomfortable. “The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. They give you these thin two sheets, so you’re basically laying on bars,” she said. “The middle of my shin to my feet stuck through the bars, which – in prison, you don’t really want to stick your leg and arms through bars, because someone go up and grab it, twist it, break it and that’s what was going through my mind.”

Griner said she was given one roll of toilet paper a month, and was given toothpaste which was more than a decade old – she used it to clear mold from her cell walls. She also said a fellow prisoner, Alana, helped her get through her ordeal. Griner was well-known in Russia before her arrest, and had won several national titles with UMMC Ekaterinburg. She was known by her fellow inmates as “The American” and “The Basketball Player”.

Griner said her second prison, IK-2, was a harsh work camp where she had to cut her hair because of the severe conditions. “We had spiders above my bed making nests,” she said. “My dreads started to freeze. They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting so sick. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.”

Her plight unfolded as Russia invaded Ukraine and her detention further heightened tensions between Russia and the US. She was freed in December 2022 after the US arranged a prisoner swap involving Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner said before she was released, she was forced to write a letter to the Russian 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.”

She was disappointed when she learned that Paul Whelan, another American who has been detained in Russia, wasn’t with her when she boarded her plane home. “I walked on and didn’t see [Walker], maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now?”

Griner plays for the Phoenix Mercury and is considered one of the best players of the modern era – she is a nine-time WNBA All-Star and has won two Olympic gold medals with Team USA. The WNBA season begins on 14 May.