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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.
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.
The pay issue is horrible. That Brittney has to take a pay cut after all she went through while trying to earn a comparable living to her male peers …jeez US
We’ve come a long way but have so far to go. Women athletes are woefully underpaid. On the positive side, she looks cute with her hair cut, looks like she lost some weight (no doubt from stress), is wearing a great suit, and Cherelle is so pretty! And wearing a lovely suit herself.
She has made millions playing for Russia the past several years so hopefully she saved that money and is good. Idk about sports but that still a lot of money for a few months for most people and she will probably get tons of endorsements,etc. just find it weird how everyone acts like she is so poor when she is literally richer than 99.9999 percent of people. I can’t imagine making over $100k for a few months of work myself. I just can’t feel sorry for an actual millionaire for not making more.
Not the point.
You are comparing apples to walnuts.
To say Tom Cruise makes more than Joe Biden is true but unless you are discussing how jobs are valued a better comparison would be Tom Cruise to Brad Pitt.
Yes, no one should ever feel it is unfair not to receive an equitable salary to their work colleagues because it could be worse and at least they are making more than minimum wage.
She looks good!! The WNBA doesn’t make money. Every years they lose millions.. The NBA puts a lot of money into the keeping the league up float. Unfortunately they just don’t have the fans or tv deals. If more people engage with the WNBA and they can increase their tv deals that will flow to the players.
This is a better explanation/ justification for that awful pay cut.
I hope she is in therapy and that she gets back to the top of her game on the court and in life.
The justification could just be the team doesn’t make enough money?
Dont know how old this is:
“It is currently estimated that the WNBA generates approximately $60 million in revenue, while $12.3 million of that revenue is distributed to its players.In 2018, the NBA’s 30 teams generated $7.4 billion in revenue”
With that disparity in EARNINGS/ REVENUE, it is a given that the players will be played less than NBA players
Brittney does looks fabulous and so does her wife. But let’s talk about the real shit here. The pay disparity between the NBA and WNBA is horrid. The NBA makes so much money! The rights paid to distribute that product is astronomical and will only go higher. I’m disgusted that they couldn’t come up with the max money for Brittney. Some of these vocal and wealthy NBA player need to start speaking up for their compatriots in the WMBA and Adam Silver needs to do what he can to step and support the WNBA in a greater way.
I feel bad that she had to temper her speech by including that we have to bring all Americans home. I mean, she isn’t wrong but I hope that it her sincere belief talking and not her having to acquiesce because so many old white people on Facebook are pissy about “Why this chick instead of X, Y, Z?”
Huge fan of hers. Liked her before, and love her now. She has handled ALL of this BS and trauma with such grace and class.
My goodness! It is so delightful to see Brittany out and about!
They look gorgeous and glowing and I wish them both health and happiness.
But folks that are up in arms over the pay cut:
Do you know if there is a WNBA team in your city? Your state?
Have you ever been to a WNBA game? Watched a WNBA game?
Purchased any merchandise? And WNBA jerseys?
Oh my goodness- if the answer is no to all of the above, then THAT is why her, and players like her have to take pay cuts.
Smh