Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner is used to getting teased.
In an interview with ESPN last year, the 6-foot 8, 205- pound star said she grew up with people making fun of her size and her voice. “They teased me about everything, my different voice, my stature, my chest,” she told reporter Kate Fagan.
The teasing and taunting haven’t stopped. Sunday, the WNBA center found herself getting Happy Father’s Day messages on social media.
“Happy Father’s Day, bro,” and “Happy Father’s Day, you’re the real MVP” flooded the comments section on her Instagram page:
“HAAPPY FATHER DAY !! Wow you get to celebrate a father day and mommy day at the same time isn’t that cool.”
“Happy fathers day now time to step up and be a father lol”
“Any boy can make a baby…but it takes a man to pay for his girl to be artificially inseminated and then get put on child support!#happyfathersday”
Some of her fans tried to jump in and tell others to stop with the taunting.
One fan commented, “Can you all stop? It’s not funny. She’s been through enough. She doesn’t need this and doesn’t deserve it. She’s beautiful on the inside and out. She’s kind and she’s funny. Homophobia is not a good look on you…just saying.”
Wrote another: “You folks have no respect..leave her alone. Let her live her life…MIND YOUR BUSINESS!”
Another fan scoffed at the bullying: “People are so stupid, all way jumping on the bandwagon. Nothing but a bunch of #followers smh”
Twitter was just as assaultive:
Although Griner has said that she doesn’t like labels, the label of father was one she didn’t care for on Sunday. Griner used some profanity to tweet her frustration: “Everybody plz chill with the Happy FD [s–t!] Tell your own dads because I’m not one.” But her response only fueled the Twitter troll fire in which she found herself later tweeting middle finger emojis and telling a user to kiss her backside. Griner was briefly married to fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson. Less than a week after their mountaintop wedding in Phoenix, Griner and Glory Johnson were suspended by the league for seven games apiece — stemming from a domestic violence incident at their home. Griner filed for an annulment 29 days after they were married.
[Griner filed for an annulment a month after the ceremony.]
Griner said that she was pressured into having a family with Johnson who was already pregnant at the time of the marriage. Johnson conceived twins through in-vitro fertilization with donated sperm.
In April, Griner agreed to pay Johnson $2,516 per month starting in May. The money is part of a larger settlement package to which they both agreed, according to Bossip. Griner was also ordered to pay 90 percent of childcare costs and $8,505 in back childcare expenses for the two girls to whom she has no biological connection.
Griner and Johnson faced each other on the basketball court for the first time on Sunday since their bitter divorce last year. The Wings beat the Dallas Wings beat the Phoenix Mercury 117-111.
Sunday’s barrage of tweets poked fun at both Griner’s body and her financial status in relationship to the twin girls. The taunting was particularly galling to some because of the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12.
Judging from the pictures of those who harassed Griner, they were of multiple ethnic backgrounds. Many were denizens of the amorphous cyber-community known as #BlackTwitter.
