WNBA star Brittney Griner didn’t want any alone time as soon as she boarded a U.S. government plane that would bring her home.
“I’ve been in prison for 10 months, listening to the Russians. I want to talk,” Griner said, according to Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs who helped secure the basketball star’s release and brought her back to the U.S. last week.
She then asked Carstens, referring to others on the plane, “But first of all, who are these guys?”
“And she moved right past me and went to every member on that crew, looked them in the eyes, shook their hands and asked about them, got their names, making a personal connection with them,” Carstens recalled in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that aired Sunday. “It was really amazing.”
Ultimately, Griner spent about 12 hours of an 18-hour flight talking with others on the plane, Carstens said. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and Phoenix Mercury star spoke about her time in the Russian penal colony and her months in captivity, Carstens recalled, although he declined to go into specific details.
“I was left with the impression this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person,” Carstens said. “But above all, authentic. I hate the…
