Brittney Griner, wife to attend White House correspondents’ dinner

WE HEAR: Brittney Griner and her wife, Cherelle, are headed to the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner.

The WNBA star will attend Saturday’s soiree in Washington as a guest of CBS News, ITK can exclusively report.

Griner was detained in Russia for nearly 10 months after being arrested in early 2022. CBS News was the first news outlet to report that the Phoenix Mercury player would return home in a prisoner swap with international arms dealer Victor Bout.

The 32-year-old Olympic gold medalist spoke to the press for the first time on Thursday following her detainment, thanking the media for keeping her story in the news before her release in December.

“I’m no stranger to hard times,” Griner said during the emotionally-charged news conference when asked about her resilience throughout her detention. “Just digging deep. You’re going to be faced with adversities in life. This was a pretty big one. I just relied on my hard work to get through it.”

Griner joins a star-studded CBS guest list. Other WHCA dinner attendees coming courtesy of CBS News include: Justin Hartley, Sofia Pernas, Jerry O’Connell and Rebecca Romijn, Julia Fox, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, BD Wong, Rosario Dawson, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.)

CBS News’s “The After Party” at the French ambassador’s residence is also shaping up to be one of the hottest post-WHCA dinner tickets, with all of the news outlet’s VIPs expected to be there.

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