Brittney Griner has returned to the US after spending nearly ten months in Russia. However, a drastic change in her looks coming out of Russia had left fans shocked. The WNBA star is well-known to rock her signature dreadlocks that she always liked to keep longer than shoulder lengths. However, the two-time Olympic gold medalist had her dreadlocks chopped off a few weeks after her recent clip following her release from Russian detention spread through the Internet. Recently, one of BG’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina revealed an odd reason why the WNBA star had to let go of her dreadlocks.

Griner spent a little over a month in the IK-2 penal colony in Yavas. The colony is located in the remote region of Mordovia, around 300 miles southeast of Moscow. The region is known for its extremely cold winters in Russia. Her lawyer recently laid out the challenges Griner faced and revealed the reason behind the drastic change in her appearance.

Brittney Griner’s new look had left fans shocked when a footage of her from the plane back to the US became viral on December 8. Fans sympathized with Griner after they noticed that Griner’s signature dreadlocks were missing. Some even blamed Russian prison authorities for the mishap.

Brittney Griner cut her dreadlocks to protect herself

In a recent interview, Maria Blagovolina claimed that Griner herself decided to cut her hair a couple of weeks ago as a measure to survive the harsh winters of Russia. Further, Blagovolina added, “It’s very cold in there and every time she washed her hair she got cold and would get a chill. She should have waited until New Year’s Day.”

Griner’s attorney revealed that BG had to cut her hair because of the extremely harsh conditions. Every time she washed her dreadlocks she would catch a cold. Hence, Brittney Griner made the brave decision of cutting off her hair which she was quite fond of.

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However, Blagovolina reckoned that BG could have waited until the end of the year to cut her hair off, given she was released weeks after the bold decision.

Griner saved from the horrors of penal colony

BG’s lawyer Blagovolina suggested that life in prison was not as bad for her as it could have been. She reckoned that Griner had no complaints and the WNBA star could have been subjected to worse situations.

Moreover, Blagovolina disclosed that BG’s 6’9 height helped her stay away from dangerous and old sewing machines. Due to her tall build, Griner could not sit on the worktables and her hands were too big to handle sewing machines. Thus, the eight-time All-Star was tasked to carry fabric all day.

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Luckily for BG, she was saved from the horrors of a penal colony as a result of the tireless efforts of the State Department. However, she might feel bad about her decision to cut the dreadlocks a little too early.