Heather Mills

Heather Mills
Born	(1968-01-12) 12 January 1968 Aldershot, Hampshire, England
Spouse(s)	Alfie Karmal (1989–1991) Paul McCartney (2002–2008)
Children	Beatrice Milly McCartney

Heather Ann, Lady McCartney

Biography and career

Early life and family

She is a daughter of John "Mark" Mills, a former British paratrooper, and his wife, the former Beatrice Mary Finlay, the India-born daughter of a colonel in the British Army. A few months after Heather was born, her family moved to Washington, then in County Durham now in Tyne and Wear; they subsequently moved to Cockshott Farm in Rothbury. Beatrice Mills left home when her daughter Heather was nine, leaving the children in the care of their father. When Mark Mills went to prison after being convicted of fraud, Heather moved to London to live with her mother. As a teenager she ran away from home and found herself homeless. In early 1989 she and her mother reconciled. Her mother had minor surgery and subsequently died; a blood clot moved into her lungs and heart resulting in death.

Modelling career

Having tried several jobs, she began a career in modeling and in 1988, while aged twenty, she took part in a photoshoot with a male model with whom she performed simulated sexual acts. The photos were published in a book entitled Die Freuden der Liebe (The Joys of Love).

Recently, photos of Heather doing full frontal pornography have surfaced, courtesy of the UK tabloids. The explicit shots for a pornographic magazine, taken before her 1993 accident, show a pouting Mills boasting: “I’m gonna drive you crazy with my body...”

Accident

In August 1993, Mills was hit by a police motorcycle while crossing the road near London's Kensington Palace; her injuries included crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and severe injury to her left leg. She needed a metal plate put into her pelvis and the amputation of her leg below the knee. Mills has a prosthetic leg, notably taking it off and showing it to USA talk show host Larry King during his interview with her in October 2002 on Larry King Live.

Television celebrity performance

Mills was one of the celebrity performers showcased during the U.S. television series Dancing with the Stars in 2007. The show's fourth season began March 19 of that year. She was eliminated from the show in the sixth week of competition on April 24,2007. Mills gave her entire payment for appearing on the show to Viva!.

Activism

Mills is an activist for several causes, particularly vegetarianism, animal rights and issues related to amputees.

Animal rights

Mills has been actively involved with the Britain's leading vegetarian, vegan and animal rights organisation, Juliet Gellatley's Viva!. She is also involved with Gellatley's Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation. Mills became a patron to both organisations in 2005. In 2006 she attended, along with Gellatley, a debate on fur at the Oxford Union at which she presented a video depicting the skinning of a dog. Mills also joined a team from Viva! to film at a pig farm in Somerset in February 2007. This was to publicize the use of restrictive farrowing crates, used for sows who are suckling piglets. A video of the investigation is available on the Internet.

In March 2006, Mills and McCartney ventured to eastern Canada to bring attention to the country's annual seal hunt. Sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, they claimed the hunt was inhumane and called on the Canadian government to put it to an end. Their arrival on the floes sparked much attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where 90% of the sealers live. Due to the intense media attention, Newfoundland and Labrador's Premier Danny Williams debated them on Larry King Live.

Mills also campaigns against the trade in dog fur (which is often passed off as fur from other animals), and particularly the live skinning of dogs. She posed with her dog, in an anti-fur advertisement for a PETA campaign, which had the catchline: "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur" campaign.

However, a video has come to light of Mills wearing a mink coat she owned and wrote about in her autobiography; the video was taken in 1989, years before being involved in animal rights or vegetarianism. Mills has stated that "It's only since I met Paul [McCartney] that I really got to understand how vegetarianism not only benefits your health massively but also makes a huge difference to the planet, to animals and to feeding the world."

Mills became involved with Animal Rights group PETA through McCartney, who had been involved with them for years prior. The New York Post claims she was dropped from PETA because the "organization doesn't want to offend her ex, longtime PETA supporter Paul McCartney." A PETA representative told the New York Post that "Heather's exposé of the Chinese fur industry remains one of most popular videos on our site...although we don't have any imminent campaigns planned with her."

Vegan arguments

On November 19 2007 she spoke out at Hyde Park in Central London arguing that people should turn vegan as livestock create far more carbon emissions than transport. "There are many other kinds of milk available" she said. "Why don't we try drinking rats' milk and dogs' milk? Eighty per cent of global warming comes from livestock and deforestation. I'm not telling people to go vegan overnight. But if they stop drinking their cows' milk lattes, maybe this sort of thing won't have to happen." An article was later published on her official website accusing the media of "an utter lack of any integrity" for suggesting she had advocated drinking rats' milk when her point, the article said, was that drinking cows' milk was as unnatural as drinking the milk of any other animal.

Viva!s founder and Mills' friend Juliet Gellatley, in her media release article 'Heather’s “Drink Rats’ Milk” Claim is Wilful Misreporting, says Viva!', of their HOT campaign, of November 20 2007, stated that "The reporters who filed this story about Heather advocating rats’ milk knew it was untrue because I amplified on what Heather had said," and that "One actually admitted that he understood precisely what she meant but the ‘drink rats’ milk’ claim made a damned good story. What this reveals is an utter lack of any integrity in most of the Press – sadly not just the tabloids but the so-called quality papers, too." Gellatley went on to say that "Every event I have attended with Heather has been grossly misreported by the Press and has involved spiteful and vicious personal attacks on her integrity and her sanity. The irony is that one of the most common accusations about Heather is that she is a fantasist and a liar – by people whose stock in trade is fantasy and lies."

Amputees

In addition to promoting distribution of prostheses worldwide, she has been involved with the development of the "Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis" 'to give amputees in America a chance to wear a Dorset Orthopaedic cosmesis without the need to visit us here in the UK'. Heather Mills is a vice-president of Limbless Association.

Recognition

In 2003, the Open University of the United Kingdom awarded her an honorary doctorate for her philanthropic work on behalf of amputees.

In 2004, she received a "Children in Need" award from the annual International Charity Gala in Düsseldorf. The proceeds from this gala went to UNESCO.

The University of California, Irvine, honoured Mills with the 2004 Human Security Award and created the Heather Mills McCartney Fellowship in Human Security, to support graduate students conducting research on pressing human security issues.

Other

Mills is currently a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), a private charitable trust, which is not directly connected to the United Nations Organization but works to highlight the goals of the UN.

Mills and McCartney are both patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield, a programme by the UNA-USA. Proceeds from Mills' updated autobiography, A Single Step, will be donated to the cause.

Personal life

Mills married Alfie Karmal, a dishwasher salesman she had been dating off and on for three years, on 6 May 1989; by this marriage, she had two stepsons. She and Karmal divorced in 1991.[2]

She met Paul McCartney at a charity event. McCartney eventually proposed with a diamond and sapphire ring he had purchased in India. Heather Mills married McCartney on 11 June 2002, four years after his first wife Linda McCartney died of breast cancer. Their wedding was an elaborate ceremony at Castle Leslie (once home of Shane Leslie) in the village of Glaslough in County Monaghan, Ireland.

As a result of this marriage, Mills became stepmother to McCartney's children: Heather, Mary, Stella, and James. On 28 October 2003, Mills gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney. The baby was named after Heather's mother, Beatrice, and McCartney's aunt Milly.

After the couple's divorce, Mills was awarded $48.6 million, plus per annum payments of $70,000 for her daughter, Beatrice. [[3]]

Public image

In October 2005, Mills won damages from The People newspaper for falsely claiming she had suffered a miscarriage.

On 17 May 2006, it was announced via the couple's websites that she was to separate from her husband. When it became known that McCartney had left her and was seen and photographed in France, Mills claimed that they were still together. Only a few days later the couple announced their separation in a joint statement. Media speculation in the weeks prior to this had been intense. In the London newspaper the Evening Standard on 18 May 2006, Mills told of the hurt she felt over claims she had only married McCartney for his money, and she said "I am no gold digger" and that the allegations were "worse than losing my leg." However, the public's perception is different: in October 2007 she was voted first on a list of Gold Diggers in an online poll. The Daily Telegraph was one of a number of British newspapers to suggest that if the couple did eventually divorce, it could lead to the UK's biggest ever divorce settlement, some estimating she could receive £200 million (a quarter of McCartney's wealth). On 30 July 2006, McCartney filed for divorce from Mills citing "unreasonable behaviour." In October 2006 national newspaper The Daily Mail alleged that McCartney accused Ben Amigoni, Mills' personal trainer, of having an affair with her; she later denied that Amigoni was her lover.

Under English law, a divorce or dissolution of marriage can be made in as little as six weeks. However, Mills has vowed to fight the case in both Britain and the United States. She is using the services of divorce lawyer Anthony Julius, from London solicitors Mishcon de Reya who had acted in the 1996 divorce for Princess Diana, while her estranged husband is said to have instructed the divorce lawyer Fiona Shackleton, who acted for Prince Charles.

On 24 October 2006, Mills announced her intention, through solicitors, to sue the Daily Mail and London's Evening Standard over "false, damaging and immensely upsetting" claims surrounding her divorce from McCartney. It has not been stated whether the litigation will be on the grounds of libel or invasion of privacy. Her law firm also intend an action against The Sun.

The Sun, which regularly refers to her as "Mucca" (a play on Paul's nickname "Macca"), has responded to Mills' threat to sue by asking her to "tick the boxes" on a series of allegations the paper has made about the former model stating "It is not clear what exactly she plans to sue us about." The paper then asks: "Come on Heather, what exactly did we get wrong? Is it that you're a ..." Underneath the open question, the Sun lists six allegations about the former model, with a blank box beside each one. The words beside the boxes read: "Hooker, Liar, Porn Star, Fantasist, Trouble Maker, Shoplifter".

In December 2006 Mills told the BBC that she has received "death threats" since splitting with her husband; on 17th December 2006 the BBC's website reported that Police have warned Heather Mills over a "non-specific threat" made to her safety.

On 21 January 2007, the press announced a settlement between the two, mentioning that McCartney would pay £32 million in cash and property to his ex-wife. The deal appears to incorporate a gagging order. Marilyn Stowe, a leading UK divorce lawyer writing in The Times called it "one of the most high-profile marriage breakdowns in history". This settlement has not been confirmed by the parties.

Since January 2007 Mills and her sister Fiona have a new section attached to Heather's website called "Enough is enough", similar to their "facts and fictions" section. So far they posted two excerpts in this sections, which were both removed from the website after a short time. In the first excerpt the sisters accused McCartney of not caring to pay for Mills' security even though she claims to receive death threats. However, the letter of support McCartney wrote for Mills about two years ago is also still on her website.

In March 2007, Mills told BBC News 24 television, "I will never get over it. I will always love Paul. He is the father of my child but I just have to move on and deal with it and there is nothing I can do... I have never spoken badly about my husband. I never will -- he is the father of my child." She also insisted that the media's attitude to her was biased.

Criticism

Mills has been written about in several publications for alleged embellishments to her life story. For example, the journalist Heather Mills of Private Eye magazine has accused Mills of impersonating her for over a year in the late 90s.

Tabloid newspaper the News of the World alleged that she was involved in prostitution during an earlier period of her life. Mills has strongly denied the allegations but never sued any of the numerous newspapers that have claimed in the past few years that she was a "high-class-hooker". The Reuters news agency quoted Mills' lawyer, Stephen Taylor from Buckinghamshire-based solicitors Coyle White Devine, who issued a statement saying, "Heather is very distressed by this article... she has suffered weight loss, anxiety and sleeping problems as a result of the stress and anxiety of the break-up of her marriage."

In March 2007, British police warned Heather Mills about using the emergency phone number '999' too often. They are quoted as saying they are having to spend a disproportionate amount of time on one particular person. Kevin Moore, the Chief Superintendent of Sussex Police, said that Mills runs "the risk of being treated as the little boy who cried wolf." Mills says that "I didn't waste police time - they encouraged me to use them when I was being harassed." The BBC report that "A spokesman for Lady McCartney said she was nervous after getting death threats and being followed at night." Moore said that "We do have to respond to a disproportionate high volume of calls from Heather Mills McCartney because of the situations she finds herself in, and this is regrettable as it takes officers away from other policing matters." Mills has officially responded to the police calls criticisms.

These criticisms have been reviewed and answered by Mills' sister Fiona. Juliet Gellatley has also vehemently defended Mills in her magazine Viva! Life.

During several interviews broadcast on UK television in October 2007, Mills accused the media of giving her "worse press than a paedophile or a murderer". She also likened her situation, due to the similar unwanted press coverage, to those of the late Princess Diana – who, according to Mills, was "chased and killed" by paparazzi – and to Kate McCann. Immediately before giving these interviews, her PR adviser, Phil Hall, quit. She then went to the U.S. where she gave a number of further televised interviews, saying that the divorce was largely brought about by her husband. She further alleged that the breakdown of the marriage was caused by Stella McCartney, whom she described as "jealous" and "evil".

Further reading

• A Single Step (ISBN 0-446-53165-0)
• Life Balance - the Essential Keys to a Lifetime of Well Being (ISBN 0718146670)

External links

• Heather Mills - Official Website
• Heather Mills at the Internet Movie Database
• Heather Mills at AskMen.com