Maura Healey Partner Joanna Lydgate Share A Passion For Basketball

Maura Healey has been dating Joanna Lydgate for the past two years.

The Massachusetts governor shared the news in her interview with The Boston Globe on January 8, three days after being sworn into her position.

Healey had beaten the Republican candidate, John Miller, in the general election held on November 8, 2022, to become the first woman governor of Massachusetts and the first open member of the LGBTQIA+ community to become a governor in the country. 

The former basketball star of Harvard University, Maura, decided it was time for her to be open about her relationship with the public. So she approved of showing her longtime lover to the world.

The couple met for the first time in 2010 when they worked in the Civil Rights Division. Lydgate is the former chief deputy of Healey as they started working together in 2014 after their success in the campaign, which saw Healey succeeding Martha Coakley. But the romance didn’t brew until 2020 after Lydgate joined States United Democracy Center.

Maura and Joanna share similar interests, whether it is about basketball or saving democracy. Joanna’s basketball exploits aren’t an unknown fact. The former co-captain of the Harvard Crimson women’s basketball team Maura, played basketball in Europe, specifically in Austria.

While working day and night for her campaign in 2022, Healey would still manage time to engage in short basketball matches with the students of the colleges she would travel to. Even during the tense situation of the Presidential Election in 2020, Healey managed to sneak a basketball analogy into her speech. 

In 2018, Maura was selected by InStyle Magazine as one of 50 badass women. In the photoshoot, Maura showed that she still had her basketball skills hadn’t faded away.

The Massachusetts Attorney General at the time, Healey, shared the photos on her Instagram handle, and the moves were later seen in the video shared by InStyle on their YouTube channel.  

Joanna is as passionate about basketball and sports as Maura but prefers to be a coach rather than a player. 

Joanna trains her two kids in basketball and soccer as she handles her duties as the president and CEO of the non-partisan organization States United Democracy Center. 

In 2017, when Maura was invited as a guest speaker at Mount Wachusett Community College, she was introduced with a basketball in her hand. The Governor of Massachusetts has previously wished for National Girls and Women Sports Day with a picture of her playing basketball with university players. 

There is no doubt that basketball was probably one of the topics that did bring Joanna and Maura closer. 

Who Is Joanna Lydgate?

Joanna Lydgate age 42 is a graduate of Yale University, where she received a degree in English.

After graduation, she worked as a Paralegal Specialist and program associate for the refugee protection program for two years.

Then Lydgate decided to enroll in UC Berkeley School of Law, where she earned Juris Doctor through which she was able to work as a Law Clerk and Assistant Attorney General. It was during this time she crossed paths with Maura.

In 2014, Jonna became policy director for Maura Healey and later worked in Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office for five years until 2020 as a deputy attorney general. 

Joanna moved on to become a national director for Voter Protection Program for nine months, and that is when she started dating Maura Healey.

Currently, she works as a President and Chief Executive Officer for the organization, which she opened in 2021, alongside Norm Eisen and Christine Todd Whiteman, to protect and secure the democracy of the USA and make sure that every voice gets heard and every vote gets counted. 

Maura Healey former partner Judge Gabrielle Wolohojian was in a relationship as a couple for thirteen years. Healey and Wolohojian were never married.

Wolohojian graduated from Rutgers University and received her PhD. from the University of Oxford in 1987. The associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court received her Juris Doctor from Colombia Law School in 1989. 

The former pair had already broken up in 2020 when Maura started seeing Joanna Lydgate. In an interview with Boston Magazine in 2015, Maura gave few details about her personal life with Wolohojian.

The two met in the law firm Hale&Door(now named WilmerHale), which Maura joined in 1999 as an associate and left in 2007. After Maura left the law firm the couple’s relationship began and stayed strong until 2020.

In 2014, Maura used Gabrille’s Charlestown townhouse as a campaign headquarters, which caused an uproar as it violated judicial conduct. Wolohojian sold the home for $2.8 million in 2021 as Maura moved to the South End, as reported by Boston Herald. 

Like Maura, Joanna also has a former husband with whom she will soon settle her divorce. In the interview with Boston Globe, Lydgate said it was a mutual decision and has been supportive of her and Maura’s relationship. 

The former pair share two kids, and he was the first person with whom Lydgate confided about her feelings for Maura. Moving on with no hard feelings is a miracle in itself, and it looks like Maura and Joanna are blessed in that department. 

Maura Healey comes from a family with roots in Ireland. 

Healey’s paternal grandparents emigrated from Cork, a city in Ireland, and settled in the US. The governor said her grandparents came to the US in search of better opportunities. 

The daughter of Tracy Healey-Beattie and Jerome J. Healey, Maura was raised alongside her five younger siblings in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Tracy Healey-Beattie, a former nurse, was a nursing teacher at Boston. 

Tracy worked as a nurse in the school Lincoln Akerman for 22 years before retiring in 2009. In a video shared by Maura, the governor revealed that her mother had sold her wedding ring so that she could pay to put a half basketball court out behind their house.

Her father, Jerome J. Healey, served as a captain in the US Public Health Service and later as a Civil Engineer. 

The governor saw her parents divorced when she was in high school and later saw her mother remarry Edward Beattie, with whom she is still married. Edward is a former women’s basketball coach of Winnacunnet and served the position for 31 years.

Muara credits her stepfather for much of her success on the basketball court, as he coached during her formative years. In 2020, Ed was inducted into the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization’s Hall of Fame.

Does Maura Healey Have Children?

Maura Healey has never experienced parenthood. She now, with Joanne takes care of two kids ages 9 and 11.

They are Joanne’s from her previous relationship. 

Maura has known the children since their birth and is comfortable around them. Joanne and her former husband share joint custody and are being raised outside of Boston.