Brittney Griner Announces Birth of Son with Wife Cherelle

Brittney Griner, a WNBA star, and her wife Cherelle welcomed their first child, a son, on July 8, according to ABC7.

“That’s my man,” the Phoenix Mercury star responded when she was asked about their new bundle of joy. “He is amazing. They say as soon as you see him, everything you thought mattered just goes out the window. And that’s literally what happens.”

Griner, 33, is part of the Team USA women’s basketball team to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics which is slated to start on July 26. “Kind of sucks, I got to leave,” she admitted. “But at the same time, he will understand. … My whole phone has turned into him.”

Griner and Cherelle announced their pregnancy on Instagram in April, as reported by HowAfrica. The couple made the announcement with a photo of themselves holding hands and their unborn child’s ultrasound.

“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being 🤍 #BabyGrinerComingSoon #July2024,” Cherelle captioned in that post.

Griner and Cherelle attended Baylor University from 2009 to 2013. Despite the fact that they met during that time, they did not get romantically involved until years later. The couple married in 2019, following their engagement.

The pair faced a setback in February 2022 when Griner was jailed in Russia on drug smuggling allegations. On February 17, the Phoenix Mercury star was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for allegedly having vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage, which she said was for medical purposes. She was eventually condemned to nine years in a Russian correctional colony.

During the WNBA offseason, the two-time Olympic champion played for the Russian women’s basketball team, UMMC Ekaterinburg. According to the New York Post, the 33-year-old joins other WNBA players who will play for teams in Russia and Ukraine during the winter season.

Griner was released in December 2022 as part of a one-for-one swap with worldwide arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to US officials. In an interview with PEOPLE, Cherelle discussed her response to her wife’s release.

“I had thought about that moment a thousand times, and I thought I would be full of tears,” she said. “But I was overwhelmingly happy. It was the first time I was able to finally exhale, and I’m like, ‘Oh, thank God, this is such a great day.’”

She also spoke about how they were coping following her release. “It’s unfortunate that those 10 months happened without us being able to be side-by-side,” she said. “But it happened, and we’re embracing the fact that we now get to learn each other’s story through that time. So we’re taking it slow. We are not doing it all at once. But we are honoring the fact that I went through something that was really hard and difficult without BG’s awareness, and vice versa.”

“Day by day, we’re just feeding a little bit to the soul and understanding each other’s journey so we can actually start walking together,” she explained.

 

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