Lindsay Mills

Lindsay Mills (born February 17, 1985) is an American acrobat and blogger. She came to international attention as the partner of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 at the time of the global surveillance disclosures. Mills left the United States to join Snowden in exile in Moscow around October 2014. They married in 2017.

Early life and education Mills's father Jonathan Mills lives in Laurel, Maryland. She graduated from Laurel High School, studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and became a dancer and acrobat. They have been together since at least 2009.

Mills kept a blog in which she posted pictures of herself posing and performing. On May 20, 2013, Snowden left Hawaii for Hong Kong and told her that he was going on a business trip.

On June 6, 2013, agents from the National Security Agency (NSA) searched Mills's home seeking Snowden. On June 9, 2013, The Guardian published a story revealing that Snowden had made the global surveillance disclosures.

After the global surveillance disclosures Mills was shocked to learn what had happened to Snowden, writing on her personal blog, "I feel alone, lost, overwhelmed, and desperate for a reprieve". One media outlet called Mills "the girlfriend Edward Snowden left behind". In 2013, BuzzFeed reviewed Mills's personal blog.

After Snowden left Hawaii, reporters sought to question members of the Waikiki Acrobatic Troupe for insight into Mills and Snowden's relationship. Some comments reported from that interview included "I never got to know her", "I wasn't even aware she was in a relationship", and "I have no idea how much pole and other stuff she'd done". By January 2014, Mills had not spoken to the media for seven months. Mills's father shared that she was trying to make sense of what had happened and plan for her future. Mills took one of the three Oscar statues awarded in the ceremony. Reflecting on the experience of being on stage to receive the statue for Snowden, Mills later commented, "We won a motherfucking Oscar!".

For Halloween 2015, Mills posted pictures of herself with Snowden in Halloween costumes as Carmen Sandiego and Waldo of Where's Waldo?. Both popular fictional characters are known for hiding.

In 2020, it was announced that Mills was pregnant and that she and Snowden intended to apply for Russian citizenship without renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Their son was born in December 2020. In 2020, Russia granted Snowden permanent residency rights, and on September 26, 2022, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree granting him Russian citizenship.

Public image Mills has a history of being highly active in new media publishing, including social media, blogging, and video sharing. Her father described her as artistic, free and open, and the opposite of Edward Snowden. The character of Lindsay Mills has a prominent place in Snowden, a 2016 dramatization of Snowden's global surveillance disclosure. Director Oliver Stone said that the relationship between Mills and Snowden was an important part of his movie. Actress Shailene Woodley plays Mills in the film. Unable to meet Mills in person before filming,