00:00out on ABC News exclusive Robbins interview with WNBA star Brittany Griner. She sat down for the
00:05first time since she was released from that prisoner swap in Russia. And George, it all
00:09started November, February of 2022. She was on her way back to Russia to finish what was going to be
00:15her last basketball season there in Russia. And she talks about the mistakes she made that changed
00:20her life. Brittany has been home for more than a year, but she's finally ready to tell her story,
00:26an experience that she says often made her feel less than human. This morning, WNBA star Brittany
00:34Griner detailing her arrest and nearly 10-month attainment in Russia in her new book, Coming
00:39Home, telling us exclusively about that fateful day. You said the whole day felt strange. How?
00:46I was late getting up, never late getting up. Finally got up, literally running around the
00:53house. I'm stressing. Like, I go into straight panic mode. Brittany says her wife, Shirelle,
00:59usually packed for her. But this time, she did it herself. My packing at that moment was just
01:05throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, OK, I'm ready. At the Moscow airport,
01:11this is Russian custom service footage of Brittany Griner putting her carry-on bags through the
01:16scanner, unaware that life as she knows it is about to end, as the agent tells her to search
01:22her backpack. So you reached down, because you've been told to go through your bag.
01:27Yep. And you felt... Felt the cartridge.
01:30Cartridge. Yeah.
01:32The agent stared as I slowly lifted out a cartridge with cannabis oil. In Arizona,
01:38cannabis is legal. In Russia, it's forbidden. I knew that, honest to God. I just totally forgot
01:45the pen was in my bag. In the midst of them going through, you know, my bags, there, there's two
01:51cartridges. And I'm just like, oh my God, how, like, how did I, how did I make this mistake? How was
01:58I this absent-minded, you know, and made this huge mistake? Like, I could just visualize everything I
02:04worked so hard for just crumbling and going away. Russian authorities determined that between the
02:11two cartridges is actually 0.7 grams of cannabis oil containing THC, the psychoactive ingredient
02:19in marijuana. Do you know there are those who say, come on, how did you not know that you had
02:26cartridges in your, in your luggage? What do you say to the skeptics? I would say, have you ever
02:31forgot your keys in your car, left your car running? Have you ever, you know, where's my
02:37glasses? They're on top of your head. Where's my phone? Oh, it's in my pocket. It's just so easy
02:42to have a mental lapse, you know. Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale, but it doesn't
02:51take away from how that can happen. The agents take her passport, boarding pass, ask her to sign a
02:58form written in Russian, that she says she can't read, and she is left to wait.
03:03You said that you felt that you let down yourself, your family, your teams. Yeah.
03:11So how did you work through that, what you call this guilt that you were feeling?
03:17I don't, I don't think I really, uh, I don't think I've really gotten through all the way.
03:34At the end of the day, it's my fault, and I let everybody down.
03:40Brittany is transferred to correctional colony number one, or IK-1, as it's known.
03:45She is now a prisoner.
03:48What were the conditions like in that particular jail?
03:51The mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,
03:56so you're basically laying on bars. From middle of my shin to my feet, stuck through the bars,
04:01which in prison, you don't really want to stick your leg and arm through bars, you know,
04:06because someone go up and grab it, break it, twist it, and that's what was going through my mind.
04:12You were only allowed one roll of toilet paper that had to last you a month.
04:18There was like two, three months where we didn't get anything.
04:21And the toothpaste had expired, what, 15 years?
04:24It was like 15 years ago. That toothpaste was expired.
04:26We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.
04:30For Brittany, her one silver lining, her cellmate, Alana.
04:34Everyone knew the American, that was my title, or the basketball player, that was also my title.
04:40So Alana literally would translate everything. I wouldn't have made it without Alana.
04:45134 days into her detainment, Brittany Griner goes on trial in Hemke, Russia.
04:51I had no intent to break any Russian laws. I made an honest mistake, and I hope that in your ruling that it doesn't end my life here.
05:03This is the moment she learned her sentence, nine years in a Russian labor camp.
05:13And where you're heading to, it's called IK2?
05:16IK2.
05:17Known as one of the worst prisons in Russia.
05:19Yeah.
05:21What were the conditions like there?
05:25Really cold. It's a work camp. You go there to work. There's no rest.
05:32Everything good? Yes. Yes. Yes.
05:34Here is video released by Russian authorities of Brittany at her prison job cutting fabric for military uniforms.
05:42So I'm picking up these big beams of fleece and cotton and silt.
05:48You put it on this machine and you roll it out a hundred times, clamp it, cut it.
05:53The frigid temperatures affecting her health and also her hair.
05:58People knew you for so long with the dreadlocks.
06:01Yeah.
06:02You decided to cut them. What was that like losing that part of you too?
06:08Honestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed making nests. My dreads started to freeze. They would just stay wet and cold and I wasn't getting sick. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.
06:20Brittany says so much of her experience was dehumanizing, including the way the prison guards treated her.
06:29She gets into much, much more of that on our special tonight and in her book, Coming Home, which is out on Tuesday.
06:36You mentioned her roommate was also her translator. Brittany speak any Russian?
06:41David, that's nine. She learned how to count from one to 10 because that was going to be her prison sentence.
06:47And she wanted to be able to understand right away. So when she heard that, she knew that it was nine.
06:53But Alana, oh my goodness, the way she talks about her and a couple of others who understood English and really helped her navigate what was going on.
07:03And you're gonna hear so much more on the special tonight about that experience.
07:07The entire 10 month ordeal, the full primetime interview with Brittany Griner runs on a special edition of 2020 tonight at 10 PM Eastern.
