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No Reports

Did American basketball player Brittney Griner make a public statement announcing she is leaving the United States? No, that's not true: Griner's long-time agent refuted the claim in an email to Lead Stories and there are no stories about any such announcement on any news websites. The rumor first appeared in an AI-generated article published by what appeared to be an anonymous clickbait blog.

The claim originated from an article (archived here) on a site calling itself News89TV.com on August 6, 2024, under the title:

Brɪttney Griner Is Leaᴠing The United States: "If You Don't Respᴇct Me, You'll Lose Your TALENT"

It continued:

Brittney Griner, a prominent figure in women's basketball, has announced her decision to leave the United States due to incessant criticism and verbal attacks. The WNBA star has been at the center of controversy for her actions during the national anthem, which include both singing and kneeling, a gesture that she describes as a way to honor the tradition while simultaneously drawing attention to social justice issues.

This is what the article looked like at the time of this writing:

(Source: News89TV screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 14:29:10 2024 UTC)

The claim

The article on News89TV.com failed to provide any verifiable details about the place and the date of the statement in question and did not link to any other news articles or press releases.

When contacted by Lead Stories via email on August 13, 2024, Griner's long-term agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas (archived here) said:

There is no truth to this.

A search across the archive of thousands of reliable news websites indexed by Google News for the keywords from the article's headline seen here (archived here) did not produce any results.

A search for a direct quote attributed to Griner (archived here) did not generate a single match on Google News, either.

Lead Stories reached out to Griner's representatives regarding the claim and will update this story if a response is received.

According to Hive Moderation, the News89TV article was written by AI:

(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 14:31:31 2024 UTC)

The headline substituted the "i" in Griner's first name with another symbol -- ɪ -- in an apparent attempt to avoid detection.

The backstory

The piece appeared to have been aimed at producing a made-up spin deriving from previous unsubstantiated rumors that circulated online just before the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics: that former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines criticized Griner for kneeling during the national anthem. But, as Snopes wrote in the August 2024 article, there was no credible evidence to support the claim that such criticism has ever been voiced by Gaines.

In 2020, Arizona Republic (archived here) reported that during George Floyd protests, Griner said that the anthem shouldn't be played at sports events and that she did not want to be present on court when it happened that season.

The controversy involving athletes who chose not to stand up when "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played during sports events started in 2016 (archived here) in connection with the BlackLivesMatter movement, and that led to debates about activism in sports.

Griner is known not only for her athletic career: In December 2022, she returned to the United States (archived here) after a 10-month detention in Russia as a result of a high-profile prisoner exchange. In the months leading up to that point, the athlete, while still imprisoned, was mocked online for her 2020 stand.

Upon her return, Griner continued her career in sports and represented the United States at the Summer Olympic Games Paris 2024. On August 11, 2024, the AP (archived here) reported from the award ceremony:

Standing on the medal stand with her third gold medal draped around her neck, Brittney Griner looked at the U.S. flag with tears streaming down her cheeks during the national anthem.

She didn't wipe them away until after the anthem ended, never trying to hide how she feels representing her country 612 days after the U.S. got the American star home after 10 months in a Russian prison.

About News89TV

The website that published the article that is the focus of this fact check did not have an About page (archived here) disclosing names of people and organizations behind it.

The earliest article currently available on this site was a February 25, 2024, blog entry (archived here) by an anonymous "admin" that read: "Hello world!"

According to the ICANN lookup tool, however, the News89TV website was registered on November 25, 2020. The earliest archived version of this resource found by Lead Stories was saved in March 2021. At the time, the website described itself as "Online News Portal in Nepal" and published stories in the local language. It did not appear to have an About section in the past, either.

Further reading

Other Lead Stories fact checks about Brittney Griner can be found here. Stories about sports are here.