Nearly a year after her release, Brittney Griner continues to gradually recover from her detention in Russia. The American basketball star has resumed the thread of his immense career, and was part of Team USA’s last training camp in early April, in preparation for the Paris Olympic Games. But the nightmare is still very present in his head.
For the first time, she will return in detail to her nine months of imprisonment in an interview with ABC, which will be broadcast on May 1. In an extract published by the channel, the 33-year-old player says that her captivity had sometimes made her feel “less than human”. To the point of making her think about suicide.
“Were there times when you considered ending it?” », Asks the journalist in this extract. “Yes, I didn’t think I was capable of enduring what I had to face,” replies, moved, Brittney Griner. “The mattress had a huge stain of blood. I had no soap or toilet paper. At that moment I felt less than human,” she adds.
Griner was arrested in February 2022 in Russia in possession of a vaping device and liquid containing cannabis, a product banned in Russia, then sentenced to nine years in prison. She was released in December 2022 during a prisoner exchange. The American will publish a book next month about detention, titled “Coming home”.