Brittney Griner does not look the same coming out of prison as she did going into it. That would certainly be expected as she has spent around 10 months in Russia. It would have puzzled several NBA fans to find out that she cut her hair and got rid of her signature deadlocks during her time in prison.
Having heard this, one would automatically assume that this had to do with prisoner disciple and regulation in the Russian prison system. However, that is not really what has happened in this instance. We should want to know the real reason behind this and why the WNBA star decided to cut her hair.
Brittney Griner cut her hair short in prison to prevent it from freezing due to the Russian climate
Turns out that Griner wasn’t forced to cut her hair at all. The climate in wherever she was held in Russia turned very cold as the year went on. Therefore, she had no choice but to do away with her hair, which we know she must have certainly cared about.
However, it certainly couldn’t have been helped. According to the reports, her dreadlocks would turn into icicles after she finished having a shower. Her lawyer was interviewed and revealed that Griner cut her hair around 2 weeks prior to being released.
“It’s very cold in there and every time she washed her hair, she got cold and would get a chill…She had honestly no complaints. Things could have been much worse…”
All we knew initially was that Brittney Griner was held in a Russian prison and soon transferred to a penal camp in an unknown location. Now, we found out that she was held at a prison called the “IK-2 prison” in Mordovia. To those who may be interested, the Republic of Mordovia is located in Eastern Europe. Additionally, it has a population of only around 835,000 people.