Louise Fitzgerald Wightman (née Johnson), better known as Lucy Wightman (born June 18, 1959 in Lake Forest, Illinois), is a writer, photographer, and blogger who became known in the 1970s and 1980s as a Boston and Providence area exotic dancer, radio talk show host, and award-winning bodybuilder. She performed under the stage name Princess Cheyenne in Boston's combat zone. The juxtaposition of her education and class background with her career attracted media attention. In the spring of 2007, she again attracted public interest, this time for being convicted of practicing psychology without a license in two south shore Massachusetts communities.
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Wightman's dancing career started in the 1970s when she was known as Lucy Johnson, and peaked when she was a headliner at the now defunct Naked i Cabaret in Boston's Combat Zone. The Boston Herald would later call Princess Cheyenne "perhaps the most famous exotic dancer ever in this town".[1] She also danced at the Foxy Lady in Rhode Island.
Using her celebrity from the exotic dancing circuit, Wightman later hosted a sex advice radio talk show on local Boston rock station WBCN and posed for Playboy magazine (as Lucy Johnson) in March 1986.[2] She competed in women's bodybuilding contests, winning the 1993 National Physique Committee Massachusetts championship and later being featured in the May–June 1996 issue of Women's Physique World.[2][3][4]
In 1985, Wightman received a bachelor of arts degree from Emerson College, and subsequently earned a masters degree in counseling psychology from Lesley University. She then enrolled at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology for five years, from 1996 to 2001. Wightman then withdrew from MSPP, submitted her credits and hours to an online degree program to which she paid $1,299 to receive a doctorate in psychology from Concordia College and University, an online institution based in Dominica that is not recognized for licensure by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. During this same period, Wightman founded South Shore Psychology Associates, and began treating patients with psychotherapy in her Norwell office.
In October 2005, Wightman was indicted in Boston, Massachusetts for practicing psychology without a license, filing false health care claims,[5] and engaging in insurance fraud after local FOX affiliate WFXT did an undercover investigation into her therapy practice. Under unusual provisions of Massachusetts law, Wightman had been allowed to practice as a psychotherapist, not as a psychologist.[6] In the indictment, the Commonwealth charged that she never applied for or received a license to practice as a psychologist in Massachusetts, which requires a doctoral degree in psychology from a state-approved program. Wightman was found guilty of 19 of 26 counts and sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation.[7] The six-month sentence was suspended, sparing her prison time. Under the terms of her probation, she was sentenced to one year of home confinement, and was barred from practicing as a psychotherapist for her entire probationary period.[8]
In 1979, Wightman was engaged to the singer Cat Stevens, but the couple broke up due to her career commitments and his conversion to Islam.[6][9]
After the breakup with Stevens, Wightman married and divorced twice; she had a daughter named Victoria (Torri) with her second husband Donald Wightman, a Boston police detective and head of security for the rock band Aerosmith.[1] On May 16, 2006, 16 year old Torri died as result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Plympton, Massachusetts. [10]