Brittney Griner Says She Felt Her Life 'Crumbling' Away When She Realized She Brought Cannabis Oil to Russia

The WNBA star spoke candidly with Robin Roberts about the fateful day of her arrest in Feb. 2022

WNBA star Brittney Griner is sharing new details about the Feb. 2022 arrest at a Russian airport that led to her 10-month detainment.

In an exclusive interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, airing May 1 on 20/20, Griner, 33, recounted the fateful moments she realized she had taken a cartridge with cannabis oil through the airport just outside of Moscow.

"You said the whole day felt strange," Roberts, 63, said in the interview.

Griner recalled being "late getting up" on the morning of her arrest and going into "panic mode" to get her belongings in order. "I'm never late getting up," she explained, adding that her wife, Cherelle Griner, is usually the one who packs for her.

Roberts asked Griner to recall the moment she "reached down" in her bag and "felt the cartridge" when Russian airport security asked to search her things.

"The agent stared as I slowly lifted out a cartridge with cannabis oil," Griner said in a voiceover excerpt from her book, Coming Home, out on May 7.

"In Arizona, cannabis is legal. In Russia, it’s forbidden. I knew that. Honest to God, I just totally forgot that the pen was in my bag," Griner's voiceover continued.

Related: Brittney Griner and Wife Cherelle Are Expecting Their First Baby: 'Coming Soon'

The Phoenix Mercury star told Roberts that she remembered thinking to herself, "Oh my god, how did I make this mistake? How was I this absent-minded?"

That's when Griner said she "could just visualize everything I worked so hard for crumbling and going away," on the day of her arrest.

Griner's arrest sparked a debate about the WNBA star's wrongdoing in bringing the cartridge to a country where it's highly illegal. Roberts asked her what she has to say to "the skeptics" who criticized her role in the situation.

Griner said she would compare the incident to common human mishaps like leaving your keys in the car or looking for your glasses when they're on top of your head.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse — granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale, but it doesn’t take away from how that can happen," Griner said.

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And although Griner has come to terms with her costly mistake that day, she admitted that she still feels immense guilt.

"I don't think I really got through it all the way," she said when Roberts asked how she dealt with the feelings of letting down her family, friends and fans. "At the end of the day, it’s my fault, and I let everybody down," Griner said.

Related: Brittney Griner Working to Join USA Team for Paris Olympics Following Her Russian Detainment

In her upcoming memoir Coming Home, Griner will detail her "raw, emotional" experience in Russian detainment for 10 months and how the global #WeAreBG movement supported her at the time.

The book will include unheard aspects of Griner's "stark" living conditions and the "terrifying aspects" of day-to-day life in a foreign prison.

Griner's detainment began on Feb. 17, 2022 after officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing hash oil, arresting her on drug smuggling charges.

She was initially sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison before she was released in a one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout on Dec. 8 and returned to the U.S. a day later.

Prison in Russia: The Brittney Griner Interview, airs May 1 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

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