WNBA star Breanna Stewart says she and her wife are ‘doing OK’ after homophobic death threat
Breanna Stewart and her wife received the death threat on Thursday. (Getty)
Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star Breanna Stewart and her wife Marta Xargay Casademont have been sent a homophobic death threat.
The New York Liberty power forward and her wife, who is a former pro basketball player, received an anonymous email filled with slurs and threats.
“I hope someone shoots your wife dead,” it read. “F**k you d**es… I hope you both die.”
The couple contacted the police to report the offence on Thursday (10 October).
Police sources told the New York Post that the internet address from which the email was sent has been associated with several other incidents, including other death threats, bomb threats and racist rhetoric.
Breanna Stewart and Marta Xargay Casademont did not initially issue a statement. However, Stewart subsequently told reporters on Tuesday (15 October), that the couple were “doing OK.”
“Myself and my family, we’re definitely doing OK,” Stewart told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re taking the proper precautions.”
“I think that for Marta, especially, I think it was, it is, terrifying,” Stewart added.
“[The threat was] something that she couldn’t not see,” she went on to say. “So the level of closeness was a little bit different. And I think that we just want to make sure, obviously, myself and Marta are OK, but our kids are the ones that are the safest.”
The couple have two children: Ruby, 3, and Theo, who turns 1 at the end of the month.
Stewart is one of a number of out LGBTQ+ players in the WNBA. A member of the gold-medal-winning US team at this year’s Olympics, she married Casademont in July 2021. They have two young children.
There were at least 175 out LGBTQ+ athletes at the Paris Games and Team LGBTQ+ unofficially finished seventh in the medal table.
Casademont, who retired in 2021, played for Phoenix Mercury and won a silver medal with the Spanish national team at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
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