A Maricopa County court has ordered Brittney Griner to pay Glory Johnson more than $40,000 a year to cover the child-rearing costs of the twins the latter conceived during the WNBA couple’s brief marriage.
Griner ended her brief marriage to fellow women’s professional basketball player Johnson when she discovered her wife pregnant, generally considered a sign of infidelity in the lesbian community. Griner reportedly believed an ex-boyfriend inseminated Johnson but her pregnant partner insists a fertility clinic did the deed.
One day after Johnson announced that she was expecting Griner filed to annul the marriage.
Despite the questions of paternity, and the absence of any question regarding Griner’s lack of paternity, the judge nevertheless ruled that she must pay. So, the 25-year-old Griner, like so many of her peers in the NBA, now siphons off a significant sum of money every month to pay for child support.
The pair married within weeks of an alleged domestic-violence incident. They parted less than a month after the marriage. Griner ultimately pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges as a result of the alleged domestic incident, and both received seven-game suspensions from the WNBA.
Court documents obtained by Bossip show that Johnson claimed to the judge that relatives take care of her babies, particularly during the NBA season, and that Griner needed to help pay them. The judge agreed but ruled that the costs to Griner would decrease as the babies get older and require less care.
Both play at an elite level in the league, with Griner earning three All-Star nods and Johnson receiving two.
The Arizona court found that the six-foot-eight Griner earned $1.2 million annually. Just $100,000 of that comes from her Phoenix Mercury salary. Johnson takes in $125,000 annually from the Dallas Wings.