Brittney Griner makes first public appearance since returning to US, has taken a pay cut

2023-02-27

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Brittney Griner has made her first public appearance since returning to the US in December after being detained in Russia for 10 months. She and her wife, Cherelle, attended the NAACP Image Awards, where Brittney was introduced by Queen Latifah and honored. Brittney received a standing ovation from the audience and expressed her thanks and showed support for all Americans detained overseas.

WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner and wife Cherelle took the stage at the award show. The show’s host Queen Latifah prefaced Griner’s appearance by commenting on the resilience of Black people.

“We stay overcoming because that’s what we do!”

She used that moment to segue into an introduction for the athlete. “As we gather here tonight, In the spirit of overcoming adversity, I want to take this moment to recognize someone who has done just that.”

Griner and her wife received a standing ovation from the audience. She showed her gratitude for their support and offered up a message for others being held in foreign countries.

“It feels so good to be here, especially with my beautiful, amazing wife and with all of you here today,” she said. I want to thank everyone, and let’s keep fighting to bring home every American detained overseas.”

The 32-year-old Griner returned to the United States after 10 months of confinement in Russia. She was arrested at an airport just outside of Moscow on drug possession charges a year ago.

[From Deadline]

It’s so great that Brittney is home safely. She and her wife looked nice and it’s good to see her looking happy and healthy. Brittney is headed back to her WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercurys, this season, however she’s taking a big pay cut to do so. According to Insider: “Griner will earn $165,100 to play for Phoenix over the 2023 WNBA campaign, per Spotrac. That base salary is a whopping 32% drop from last season and far less than the $234,936 supermax for which she was eligible and could have easily commanded from the Mercury this season.” It’s said that Brittney took the pay cut so the team would also be able to re-sign Diana Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time scoring champion. So Brittney sacrificed a large part of her own salary for the overall good of her team after missing last season because she was detained in Russia, where she had only been because female basketball players can make more there playing in the off-season. She was in Russia because the unequal WNBA compensation and now she’s taking a pay cut. Honestly, it’s nice that Brittney is a team player, but this is a bad look for the team that she has to do this after what happened to her. They should have come up with the funds another way.

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