{"id":768876,"date":"2022-06-20T17:52:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/brittney-griners-wife-said-american-embassy-error-ruined-anniversary-phone-call\/768876\/"},"modified":"2022-06-20T17:52:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T21:52:12","slug":"brittney-griners-wife-said-american-embassy-error-ruined-anniversary-phone-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/brittney-griners-wife-said-american-embassy-error-ruined-anniversary-phone-call\/768876\/","title":{"rendered":"Brittney Griner’s wife said American embassy error ruined anniversary phone call"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Brittney Griner tried to call her wife 11 times on Saturday through the American embassy in Russia, but the embassy wasn\u2019t staffed properly, Cherelle Griner told The Associated Press on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cherelle and Brittney haven\u2019t spoken in more than four months since Brittney was arrested in Russia. The two were set to talk over the phone on Saturday to celebrate their wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n

Yet Brittney never called \u2014 at least, that\u2019s what Cherelle initially thought.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Cherelle learned that Brittney called 11 times over several hours to a number she was given by the United States embassy in Moscow, per the report. The embassy was then going to patch the call through to Cherelle in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

But nobody was at the desk in the embassy on Saturday to actually connect the couple.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI was distraught. I was hurt. I was done, fed up,\u201d Cherelle told The Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure I texted BG\u2019s agent and was like, \u2019I don\u2019t want to talk to anybody. It\u2019s going to take me a minute to get my emotions together and just tell everybody I\u2019m unavailable right now.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cBecause it just knocked me out. I wasn\u2019t well, I\u2019m still not well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The State Department said that \u201cwe deeply regret that Brittney Griner was unable to speak to her wife because of a logistical error.\u201d Cherelle said that someone in the U.S. government called to apologize.<\/p>\n

While the number Brittney was given is typically used during the week, Cherelle said the call had been on the books for quite some time.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis phone call had been scheduled for almost two weeks, with a weekend date,\u201d Cherelle told The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brittney was first arrested in Russia in February after officials claim they found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport. She has been detained ever since, and her detention was extended again through at least July 3<\/a>. The State Department did classify Brittney as a wrongfully detained citizen, and pressure has been mounting on the government to bring the Phoenix Mercury star home.<\/p>\n

Though she obviously wants Brittney home as soon as possible, Cherelle was looking forward to the next best thing on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis was such a big moment because this would have been the first time where I truly could tell if she\u2019s okay,\u201d Cherelle said, via The Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cThis would have been the first time for me to actually just hear her in real time and to truly know if she\u2019s okay or to know if she\u2019s seconds away from not being in existence anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cherelle said she\u2019s starting to lose hope that President Joe Biden and his administration can help bring Brittney home, and that even hoping to talk with Biden about the situation is \u201cstarting to feel like a no.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all, she said, a phone call is a much easier ask than getting her wife released from foreign custody.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI find it unacceptable and I have zero trust in our government right now,” Cherelle said, via The Associated Press<\/a>. “If I can\u2019t trust you to catch a Saturday call outside of business hours, how can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife\u2019s behalf to come home? Because that\u2019s a much bigger ask than to catch a Saturday call.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brittney Griner tried to call her wife 11 times to celebrate their anniversary on Saturday, but the American embassy in Moscow apparently didn’t have anyone working the phones to connect them. (Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>
Gregory Shamus via Getty Images<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

From:AOL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brittney Griner tried to call her wife 11 times on Saturday through the American embassy in Russia, but the embassy wasn\u2019t staffed properly, Cherelle Griner…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}