Vaughn Scribner, who wrote the acclaimed 2020 book “Merpeople: A Human History,” once stated that Key West has the largest number of mermaids he has ever seen. The primary reason for that is one woman: Kristiann Mills.
A Key West native known as Mermaid Kristi Ann, Mills is a well-known professional mermaid who has always been comfortable in the water. In 2013 she opened the Captain’s Mermaid, the island’s first boutique to sell colorful mermaid tails for water nymphs, and in 2015 began teaching aspiring “merpeople” to swim in tails.
Mills grew up in a family of wedding, festival and event people — a background that served her well when she launched the Key West Mermaid Festival in 2019. Taking place annually in July, the festival has been lauded on national television as one of the largest mermaid meetups in the world.
Mills is no stranger to the television scene. To help ring in 2025, she appeared live on CNN from Key West’s Duval Street, explaining the mermaid mystique to correspondent Randi Kaye during Anderson Cooper’s internationally viewed “New Year’s Eve Live” program. She and Kaye, and a “merman” who joined them on camera, wore dazzling mermaid tails and sea-themed bling.
Host of a radio talk show on Party 105.7 FM, Mills also is the executive marketing director of The Greeen House in Key West.
She loves to travel and recently spent several months exploring, ironically, the southwestern desert.
Yet no matter what other activities she might pursue, her principal focus is living and sharing the mermaid lifestyle. She recently discussed that lifestyle with the Keys Weekly.
What advice would you give someone who wants to embrace the mermaid lifestyle? The mermaid lifestyle is not just one thing; it’s full of endless possibilities. The most important thing is to pick your “mersona,” and swim with it. In other words, make it what you want it to be. Be a hobbyist who just likes to dress up, or swim in a mermaid tail, create your own pod, be a mermaid instructor, or be a landlocked mermaid that just sits at the edge of the water because you don’t swim. The oceans are the limit.
As a little girl, did you ever imagine that you would grow up to be a professional mermaid? No, I did not. My mermaid career developed organically. When I was a little girl, playing mermaid with my sister was a very natural thing. The element of the ocean always seemed right — something about being far away from it for too long pulls at my heart strings.
How would you describe the Key West Mermaid Festival? The festival is full of meet-and-greets with mermaids and our very own King Neptune. For the last three years, we’ve been educating the public at one of our favorite events at the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center. Every year we add more fun activities like face painting and crown decorating. We also enjoy our annual July 4 Beach Party at Lagerheads Beach — our Red, White, Blue and Mermaids Too event.
What do you like best about Key West? What qualities or quirks make it the perfect home for you? I love the magic of the island most. I feel it’s a portal that has drawn people here for many moons. It’s a place where you can just be yourself, because all are accepted and treated as human beings. People here are youthful in spirit, and are not afraid of letting their inner light shine as bright as our sun.
What do you like to do when you’re not working? I always say I’m a mermaid of many tails. I’m excited to have the flexibility to be creative in my work — I feel like all of my jobs are all rolling into one, and all my upbringing and life experiences have led me to where I am today. But when I’m not working, on a day the weather is nice, I love to go to the beach to enjoy the ocean, write poems and read or research the masters and ancient history. And I like to dabble in all things esoteric.
What message do you want your work as a mermaid to communicate to people? Always keep swimming toward your dreams, no matter your age or how out of the ordinary it might seem to the masses. Everyone’s passions are different and unique to the individual. At first people might not understand what you’re trying to do — but sooner or later, if you just focus on swimming in your own lane, your work will speak for itself.
