Brittney Griner and partner Cherelle announce they are expecting a baby... 16 months after WNBA star was released from Russian penal colony in prisoner exchange for arms dealer: '#BabyGrinerComingSoon'

Brittney Griner and her partner Cherelle have revealed they are expecting a baby - a little over a year after the basketball star was released from a Russian penal colony.

The WNBA player returned to the United States in December 2022, after spending 10 months between prison and a penal colony in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Griner recently re-signed with the Phoenix Mercury - her only WNBA team - ahead of this year’s Olympics in Paris. 

But this summer will also see the 33-year-old welcome her first child with Cherelle. 

'Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,' Cherelle Griner wrote on Instagram.

Brittney Griner and her partner Cherelle have revealed they are expecting a baby

'We’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,' Cherelle revealed

She posted a photograph of her and Brittney holding hands as well as scans of the baby, alongside the hashtags '#BabyGrinerComingSoon' and '#July2024'.

Griner previously had twins with her ex-wife and fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson in 2015 but they divorced just a year later. 

Brittney and Cherelle first got engaged in 2018 but four years later Griner was arrested at an airport in Moscow, with Russian authorities claiming she was caught entering the country with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. 

Griner was put in a detention center near Moscow until November of that year, when she was moved to an undisclosed prison. 

The basketball star was then taken to a penal colony in Mordovia, a Russian region roughly 300 miles southeast of Moscow, to serve her nine-year sentence on drug charges.

Eventually, in December 2022, the 6-foot-9 WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist was was freed in a prisoner exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner was arrested at an airport in Moscow and handed a nine-year prison sentence