WNBA star Brittney Griner has revealed a controversial name she wants her newborn son to call her.

Griner and his wife Cherelle welcomed their first child together 19 months after the WNBA star was released from a Russian penal colony.

The 33-year-old revealed during the WNBA All-Star weekend that her baby had arrived and admitted that she is very excited to welcome her little bundle of joy into the world.

However, the basketball star also revealed that she did not want to be known as “mom,” opting for “dad” instead.

In an interview with CBS Sports’ We Need To Talk, host Terrika Foster-Brasby excitedly congratulated Griner, telling her, “You’re about to be a mom!”

But the Phoenix Mercury center playfully stepped in to correct her, saying, “Dad! Dad!”

Griner quickly dismissed the moment and went on to reveal that, in fact, her son had already been born.

“I’m so excited,” she said when asked about the pregnancy. “Well, I guess I’ll just let it go… he’s here. He’s seven pounds, eight ounces. Yeah, that’s my man!”

Several basketball fans were confused by Griner’s less traditional parenting decision, with one even asking, “If she refers to herself as ‘pops,’ why would she want to play in a women’s league?”

Another took to social media to ask: “Are they allowing men into the WNBA now?”

Despite fans’ confusion, Griner has maintained that she is a biological woman and identifies as a female.

In a 2015 interview with ESPNGriner spoke about her body and the criticism she has had to endure.

“I’m sure people will have a lot of critical things to say,” she said, referring to the photos of herself that appear in ESPN’s “Body Issue.”

 

Griner (right) and his wife Cherelle (left) welcomed their first child together: a boy.

 

 

 

Several basketball fans were confused by Griner’s less traditional parenting decision.

“Hey, it’s a man!” But hey, that’s my body and I look the way I look. People are either going to accept me as I am or not. I don’t know what they think I’m hiding.

“I’ve heard, ‘Oh, she’s not a woman, she’s a man.’ I’ve been told, ‘Oh, she’s putting things in her stomach.’ They thought I was putting things in my stomach. I mean, (in the Body Issue) it’s there. Let me prove that I embrace flatness! I just want people to see someone who embraces being naked, embraces everything that comes with being different.”

She also revealed that growing up she was called a boy and was even forced out of the women’s bathroom.

“They called me boy all the time,” she said. “When I go into the bathroom, they still look at me with a shocked look, like, ‘Are you supposed to be here? ‘ But I’ve gotten so used to it that I’m like, ‘I’m a girl, I’m in the right bathroom.’”

 

The WNBA champion and her wife announced they were expecting a baby in April.

‘In China, this happens all the time! One time, when I entered the bathroom, a lady was so shocked that she pushed me out; she was so hysterically surprised that I was there. I couldn’t do anything but laugh.’

She also added that she doesn’t like labels, she feels both feminine and masculine, but she felt forced to choose one when she was a child.

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

However, welcoming another child with Cherelle has reminded the 33-year-old just how great that feeling is.

“It’s amazing,” Griner continued. “They say that as soon as you see them, everything you thought was important goes away, and that’s literally what happens.”

“It’s a shame because I have to go, but at the same time he will understand.”

Brittney and Cherelle first got engaged in 2018, but four years later the former was arrested at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities claimed she was caught bringing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil into the country.

 

Griner was infamously released from a Russian penal colony after being arrested in Moscow.

Griner was held in a detention center near Moscow until November of that year, before being transferred to an undisclosed prison.

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

Finally, in December 2022, the 6-foot-9 WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist was released in a prisoner exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout after spending 10 months in jail.

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