Bruce Blakeman's ex, Nancy Shevell, married to Paul McCartney, contributed $18G to Gov. Kathy Hochul's reelection bid

WASHINGTON — Maybe he’s not amazed, but Bruce Blakeman’s ex-wife, who is married to Paul McCartney, gave $18,000 to his gubernatorial campaign foe, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, before he had officially jumped into the race, records show.

Nancy Shevell, a former vice president of her family's now-shuttered New Jersey-based trucking company, who was married to Blakeman for 23 years until 2008, contributed the money to the Friends for Kathy Hochul Committee on May 28, 2025, according to filings with the New York State Board of Elections reviewed by Newsday. The contribution was reported earlier Wednesday by the Albany-based Times Union newspaper.

Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, did not officially announce until December his bid for governor, though reports about the possibility were published in April and May 2025 and his name has been floated for years.

Asked about his ex-wife's contribution to Hochul at a news conference in Middle Village, Queens, on Wednesday, Blakeman said, "I don’t know anything about it, and certainly she’s free to contribute to any campaign that she wants to contribute to."

He added, "But my understanding is she made that contribution six months before I got into that campaign with Kathy Hochul. And that’s what I’ll say on the subject. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask her."

Blakeman and Shevell have a son named Arlen, who published reports said was campaigning with Blakeman this past week. Newsday has previously reported Shevell and McCartney originally met in the Hamptons, where they both owned homes. She married the former Beatle in 2011.

The donation to Hochul from Shevell, who served on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2001 until her resignation in January 2012, is the largest single campaign contribution she’s made, according to records on the State Board of Elections website. Shevell made more than a dozen donations to local Democratic candidates and committees since 2008. She also made a $3,500 federal contribution to Democrat Mary Peltola, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat from Alaska.

Asked Wednesday about his relationship with McCartney, Blakeman called it "amicable" and said he is a fan of the "musical genius."

Blakeman spoke more broadly during a Sept. 10 podcast, "You Decide with Errol Louis," about what it felt like for his ex-wife to be married to a Beatle.

"We were married for 23 years. We had a wonderful child together, and we had an amicable, you know, divorce and settlement," Blakeman said. "But yeah, it’s a little surrealistic that your ex-wife is married to a Beatle."

Blakeman went on to talk about how he’s since remarried, to Segal Blakeman, "a great woman," noting that she is a judge.

As for McCartney, Blakeman said, "He’s my son’s stepfather and he treats my son very nicely." He added, "He’s a nice guy. Our politics probably aren’t the same, but we don’t talk about politics."

This is McCartney's third marriage, following those to Linda McCartney, whom he married in 1969 and who died of breast cancer in 1998, and Heather Mills, whom he married in 2002 and from whom he had an acrimonious divorce two years after separating in 2006.