Mehgan Heaney-Grier

Mehgan Heaney-Grier (born Mehgan Renee Heaney; August 26, 1977) is an American champion freediver, fashion model, actress, conservationist, and TV personality.

Early life Heaney-Grier was born in Duluth, Minnesota to Bill and Renee Heaney. Her parents divorced when she was six years old. When she was eleven years old her mother remarried to Nelson Grier and in the summer of 1989, Heaney-Grier, along with her sister Erin, mother and new stepfather moved to the Florida Keys. When she was 16 years old, she legally changed her last name to Heaney-Grier.

Freediving

Free-diver Mehgan Heaney-Grier swimming while wearing a mermaid tail. In 1996 at the age of 18 Heaney-Grier established the first constant weight free-diving record in the United States with a dive to on a single breath of air. The following year she beat her own record with a dive to , When she set her second US record, the women's world record for free diving was . In 2000, Heaney-Grier was inducted as part of the inaugural roster into the Women Divers Hall of Fame.

Television In the late 1990s, Heaney-Grier partnered with her diving trainers, Manny Puig and Mark Rackley (who was at the time also Heaney-Grier's boyfriend), filming underwater encounters with animals such as alligators and sharks. Rackley had worked as a spearfisherman and underwater videographer, They also worked on a USA Network one-hour special titled "Deep Diver: Tiger Shark Odyssey". Heaney-Grier has also performed underwater stunts, including scuba diving, free diving and working with sharks, as a stunt double for Jessica Alba and Ashley Scott in Into the Blue, and for actress Olivia Wilde in Turistas.

Other work Heaney-Grier was featured in the books A Family of Women by Carolyn Jones. and Freedive! by Terry Maas and David Sipperly,

Personal life Heaney-Grier married Silas Binkley on June 6, 2010. For seven years she has been the guardian of a rescued wolf-dog hybrid named Rontu, They have one child together, Cash, born 2013.