Heather Mills
- Profession: Gold digger
- Place/Date of Birth: Aldershot, Hampshire, 12 January 2021
- Associated with: Paul McCartney
The statement finished: "We ask on behalf of our client for the media, as a matter of common decency, please now to show some restraint."
Divorce row Heather backed by friends - Oct 20 2006
Friends of Heather Mills McCartney have rallied round her as the divorce battle with Sir Paul McCartney becomes increasingly bitter.
Their split has dominated the headlines after a document purporting to be a legal response by Lady McCartney set out a catalogue of sensational accusations against Sir Paul.
Heather’s claims, apparently prepared by her lawyers as an answer to Sir Paul’s divorce petition, were leaked to the media.
The ex-Beatle said he would "vigorously" defend her allegations in court but he would maintain his silence until then.
Today Juliet Gellatley, founder of animal rights charity Viva, told GMTV it was "shocking" how inaccurate reports in the press had been about Heather.
She said: "I can’t really comment on how she is coping. All I can do is tell you how I find Heather as a person, which is somebody who is a very lovely, warm, passionate person, somebody which has a big sense of humour - certainly she’s got the ability to laugh at situations and herself."
Yesterday publicist Max Clifford defended Sir Paul over the claims, saying: "If this was an attempt by anybody to damage the reputation of Paul McCartney, I believe that it will fail.
"Heather was unpopular to start with and my belief is that she is even more unpopular now."
Mr Clifford said refuting the allegations in court was the "most effective" way of maintaining Sir Paul’s reputation.
Macca’s ex ’could net £100m’ claim - Sept 4, 2020
Lady Heather Mills McCartney could win £100 million in her bitter divorce from Sir Paul McCartney a divorce lawyer has claimed in a new documentary. Legal expert Mark Stephens said although there has been publicity on both sides, if the case comes to court, Sir Paul could be forced to pay more than he wants to.
In the ITV documentary Mr Stephens said: "They’ll say Heather Mills McCartney is entitled to, the child is entitled to, and they’ll make the award and that award will be bigger, I think, than Sir Paul will want to pay. I think Heather, if she pushes it, could get up to a hundred million."
His sentiments were echoed by publicist Max Clifford, who agreed Lady McCartney was probably "after £100m". The half-hour documentary explores the acrimonious break-up of the couple, which has dominated newspaper headlines for several months.
It looks at the early days of their relationship, their marriage and birth of daughter Beatrice, before examining how their originally amicable parting deteriorated after old photos of Lady McCartney posing topless in an adult magazine were exposed.
The documentary claims that following the split, Lady McCartney has become "fair game" for newspapers as she no longer has the more influential backing of Sir Paul.
It also says recent images of Lady McCartney locked out of the couple’s London home were staged, and Sir Paul had actually changed the locks sometime earlier. The photos were plastered across national newspapers, sparking rumours photographers had been tipped off. These claims have been denied by Lady McCartney’s advisers.
The programme, McCartney v McCartney, also reveals new research which shows that since their separation, Lady McCartney has had much more publicity than Sir Paul, with 216 photos in the tabloids, compared to his 165.
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Heather Mills has definitely got one hell of a story, she was born in 1968, her mother left the family home when she nine, leaving Heather to care for her siblings under the watchful eye of an abusive father. Heather ran away from home at thirteen and found herself homeless, living under Waterloo arches for four months.
She was eventually "discovered" and started modelling, it wasn’t long after that at the age of 22, that she moved to Northern Yugoslavia, now Slovenia, for a holiday and eventually ended up moving there to build a new life and become a ski instructor. Whilst out there she witnessed the outbreak of civil war and the effect it had on many of her friends. On her return to England she set up a refugee crisis centre, funded by the modelling work that she was still doing, she continued her charity work over the next two years when tragedy struck, on a visit to the UK.
In August 1993, Heather was involved in a road accident with a police motorcycle. Her injuries included crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and multiple fractures of the pelvis and the loss of her left leg below the knee. Realising her modelling career would now possibly be over, she summoned the press into her hospital room and sold her story.
Through the adjustment of returning to ’normal’ life with one leg, Heather found a practical problem that she felt she could solve. Her residual limb, or stump as she prefers to call it, was fitted with an artificial limb. But due to the nature of the wound changing in shape and size, the prosthetic leg had to be continually replaced, whilst the old leg would be discarded. Heather realised that if the redundant prosthesis would never find another use, there must be literally thousands out there just waiting for a new home. With her experiences in the former Yugoslavia, Heather knew that these redundant limbs would be more than welcome in areas such as the Former Yugoslavia.
Heather instigated a nation-wide appeal for the donation of unwanted prostheses, and then employed the services of the inmates at Brixton prison to dismantle the limbs and make them ready for transport. October 1994, just a year after her accident, the first convoy of artificial limbs and medical equipment left for Zargreb. Arriving at the Institute of Prosthetics in Zargreb the limbs were now ready to be fitted. Over 22,000 amputees and victims of land-mine explosions have been helped since the first Convoy left the U.K.
It was not long after that at the young age of 25 that Heather wrote her biography, whilst most 25 year olds could hardly fill a chapter, Heather had a real story to tell. ’Out on a Limb’ landed straight onto The Times’ best-seller list as well as appearing in the 1997 Reader’s Digest Best non-fiction compilation. The proceeds from the book go to raising money for child amputee war victim’s world-wide (although the most publicised are in the Former Yugoslavia). All Heather’s charity work has funded from her own pocket.
Heather has been given many accolades and awards for her work for charity. Former Prime Minister John Major presented her with the Gold Award for Outstanding Achievement; The Times presented her with their Human Achievement Award, and the British Chamber of Commerce not only named her Outstanding Young Person of the Year, but also named an award after her - the Heather Mills Award. If this was not enough, in 1996 she received a nomination for The Nobel Prize and has since received the 1999 "People of the Year Award", The "Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement 2000 Award", The "Pantene Spirit of Beauty Award" and the "Woman of the Year" by the Blue Drop Group in Sicily as well as lots more.
Heather collected the "REDBROOK Mother & Shakers Award", presented by Hillary Clinton, and she received the Victory Award hosted by the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC.
If that was not enough, Heather has also done a lot of TV work presenting for programmes such as That’s Esther.
In her personal life, she found temporary happiness with ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. Despite some rather obvious objections from Paul’s daughter Stella, the couple married in 2002 and had a daughter together.
In 2006 both Paul and Heather made a joint statement confirming their separation, after Paul McCartney filed for divorce, citing ‘unreasonable behaviour’. What has followed has been a media storm, with Heather at the heart of the controversy.
The main allegations is that she merely married Sir Paul for his money and fame, with British papers suggesting that this could be the biggest divorce settlement ever witnessed. Heather has always denied the allegation of being a ‘gold digger’, claiming that the separation and process of divorce is ‘worse than losing my leg’.
Alongside her threat to sue national papers over ‘false, damaging and immensely upsetting’ reports about the divorce, it has also been reported that Heather has received death threats since splitting with her husband.
In January 2003, a settlement was announced between the two parties, believed to amount to £32 million, plus a gagging order.
November 2007