{"id":840655,"date":"2026-08-01T15:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840655\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:57:11","slug":"wnba-star-brittney-griner-files-for-divorce-from-wife-who-led-campaign-for-her-release-from-russian-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840655\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA star Brittney Griner files for divorce from wife who led campaign for her release from Russian prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA star Brittney Griner<\/a> has filed for divorce from wife Cherelle Griner, and is seeking joint physical custody of their two-year-old son.<\/p>\n

The Connecticut Sun center<\/a>, 35, has been married to Cherelle, who heavily advocated for the basketball player’s release from a Russian prison in 2022<\/a>, for eight years.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Brittney submitted a petition to the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, for the dissolution of marriage. The filing, obtained by ABC News<\/a>, stated that the couple has been separated since July 24, 2026, and that the marriage “is irretrievably broken” with “no hope of reconciliation.”<\/p>\n

Brittney has requested joint physical custody of their son, Bash<\/a>, whom they welcomed in 2024, as well as “equitable division” of all marital debts and assets, “both real and personal, tangible and intangible.”<\/p>\n

An attorney representing Brittney told the outlet in a statement, “This is a matter we hope the parties can resolve privately. There is no further comment at this time.”<\/p>\n

\"Brittney<\/p>\n

Brittney Griner married second wife Cherelle in 2019 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Independent has contacted Brittney and Cherelle’s representatives for comment.<\/p>\n

Brittney’s divorce filing comes four years after she was freed from Russia in a prisoner swap<\/a>. The athlete had originally been detained at a Moscow airport in February 2022 after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil \u2014 a drug strictly illegal in Russia <\/a>\u2014 were found in her luggage.<\/p>\n

She pleaded guilty <\/a>to drug-possession charges and was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cherelle led a months-long campaign, working closely with the Biden administration<\/a> to advocate for Brittney’s release.<\/p>\n

“I won’t go down until she’s back … every single day matters for me to be sound, for me to be alert, for me to be attentive, to make sure that she comes back,” Cherelle, who is a lawyer, said on a May 2022 segment of Good Morning America.<\/p>\n

\"WNBA<\/p>\n

WNBA star is seeking joint custody of their two-year-old son, Bash (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Brittney ultimately spent 10 months in Russian detention before she was released in a prisoner swap in December 2022.<\/p>\n

In her first interview following her release<\/a>, Brittney revealed that she “wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks.”<\/p>\n

“I felt like leaving here so badly,” she told ABC’s Robin Roberts in 2024. “I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.”<\/p>\n

The WNBA veteran was previously married to retired WNBA player Glory Johnson, with whom she shares twins, Ava Simone and Solei Diem. The pair got divorced a year after tying the knot in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA star Brittney Griner has filed for divorce from wife Cherelle Griner, and is seeking joint physical custody…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[23311,49,48,292794,292793,238958,6378,292795,292792,82,630],"class_list":["post-840655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-brittney-griner","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cherelle","tag-divorce-filing","tag-fulton-county","tag-georgia","tag-joint-physical-custody","tag-russian-prison","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}