Heather Mills

For the Private Eye journalist see Heather Mills (journalist).

Heather Mills
File:HeatherMills1.jpg Heather Mills
Born	(1968-01-12) 12 January 1968 Hampshire, England
Spouse(s)	Alfie Karmal (1989–1991) Paul McCartney (2002–present)
Children	Beatrice Milly McCartney

Heather Anne Mills McCartney (born 12 January 1968) is the estranged wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney as well as an activist and former glamour model. She campaigns on behalf of several causes, including aid for amputees, the curtailment of land mines and animal rights.

Early life and career

Early life and family

Mills was born in Aldershot, Hampshire to John "Mark" Mills, a former British paratrooper, and his wife, Beatrice Mary Finlay, the daughter of a colonel in the British Army. A few months after her birth, the family moved to the town of Washington in Tyne and Wear, then to Cockshott Farm in Rothbury.

When she was eight years old, she was sexually assaulted by a swimming pool attendant, something that her family say affected her deeply, as did her father's reportedly violent relationship with her mother. Her mother left home when Mills was nine, leaving Mills, her older brother Shane, and her younger sister, Fiona, in the care of their father.

When her father was jailed after being convicted of fraud, Mills moved to London to live with her mother and her mother's new partner, actor Charles Stapley, but at the age of 15, she ran away from home to join a funfair, and found herself living in a cardboard box under Waterloo Station for four months. Just before or after this period, she was put on probation for having stolen from a jeweller's shop, where she worked after leaving school. Mills and her mother reconciled in 1989, shortly before her mother died during minor surgery.

Modelling career and first marriage

Having tried several jobs, she set up her own model agency in 1986. It was during this period of her life that she took part in a photoshoot for a German sex education manual called Die Freuden der Liebe (The Joys of Love), during which she simulated sex acts with a male model. She also modelled for full-frontal nude photographs.

In May 1989, she married Alfie Karmal, a dishwasher salesman with two sons from a previous marriage. The couple divorced in 1991.

Work in Croatia

Further information: Landmine

In 1992, Mills took a job as a ski instructor in Yugoslavia, just as the civil war there broke out. The BBC reports that she set up a refugee crisis centre in London and succeeded in helping 20 people to escape. She also delivered donations to Croatia, driving there on her own, sometimes via Austria where she took modelling assignments to pay for the trip.

Traffic accident and work with amputees

In August 1993, she was hit while crossing the road near London's Kensington Palace by a police motorcycle travelling to an emergency, suffering crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and the loss of her left leg above the ankle. A metal plate later had to be inserted into her pelvis, and her left leg amputated below the knee. She was awarded £200,000 damages by the police. She has since become known for showing people her prosthetic leg, famously taking it off during an interview in 2002 with American talk show host Larry King.

After the accident, she sold her story to the News of the World, and gave other interviews, which she says earned her £180,000, and used it to set up the Heather Mills Health Trust to deliver prosthetic limbs to people, particularly children, who have undergone amputation after standing on landmines.

Mills had undergone the experience in the period after her accident of constantly needing her prosthetic leg to be replaced because the shape and size of the wound was changing, as is common, which gave her the idea of collecting discarded limbs from patients in the developed world for the use of amputees in poorer countries where prostheses are less available to most people. She made a public appeal for unwanted limbs, and persuaded Brixton prison in London to allow inmates to dismantle them and get them ready to be transported. The first convoy of limbs arrived in Zagreb in October 1994, 14 months after her accident. Mills travelled with the convoy to film interviews with some of the people who were helped by her campaign, showing her own injury to other victims to persuade them that recovery is possible. With the help of a ghostwriter, she wrote a book about her experience, Out on a Limb.

In 1999, she became engaged to documentary cameraman Chris Terrill, but ended the relationship two weeks before the wedding.

Marriage to Paul McCartney

Mills met Paul McCartney in 1999.

Mills met Sir Paul McCartney at the Pride of Britain charity event in April 1999, where she was presenting an award for courage and appealing on behalf of the Heather Mills Trust. McCartney saw the appeal and met with her to discuss donating to her charity, to which he then gave £150,000.

On July 22, 2001, McCartney proposed with a diamond and sapphire ring he had purchased in India. They were married on 11 June 2002, four years after McCartney's 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. On 28 October 2003, Mills gave birth to the couple's daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney, who was named after Heather's mother, Beatrice, and McCartney's Aunt Milly.

Activism and later career

Animal rights

Further information: Animal liberation movement, Animal rights, Factory farming, Seal hunting, and Vegetarianism

Mills became a patron of Viva!, a British animal rights organisation run by Juliet Gellatley, as well as Gellatley's Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation in 2005. In 2006, she and Gellatley attended a debate on fur at the Oxford Union at which Mills presented a video depicting the skinning of a dog. She has continued to campaign against the trade in dog fur, which is often passed off as fur from other animals, and particularly the live skinning of the animals. She posed with her dog in an anti-fur advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had the catch line: "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur."

Mills also joined a team from Viva! to film at a pig farm in Somerset in February 2007, to publicise 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 travelled to Canada to bring attention to the country's annual seal hunt. Sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, they said the hunt was inhumane and called on the Canadian government to put an end to it. Their arrival on the floes sparked much attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where 90 percent of the sealers live. Newfoundland and Labrador's Premier Danny Williams debated the issue with them on Larry King Live.

In 2008, an old video surfaced of Mills wearing a mink coat she had owned in 1989, and had written about in her autobiography, years before being involved in animal rights or vegetarianism. Mills has said, "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' relationship with PETA ended when Mary McCartney said she would not continue to take photographs for the group if Mills was involved with them. The McCartneys as a family have been supporters of PETA for many years. A PETA representative told the New York Post: "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."

Veganism campaign

Further information: Dairy cattle, Greenhouse gas, and Veganism

On November 19 2007, she spoke in Hyde Park in London, arguing in favour of veganism on the grounds that livestock create more carbon emissions than transport does. She said, "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." Her suggestion that human beings stop drinking cow's milk and try other kinds of non-animal milk was misreported by some newspapers as a recommendation to drink rat's milk, after she said, "Especially when you have 25 other alternate milks in many health stores and supermarkets. It's kind of bizarre. Why don't we drink rat's milk or dog's milk or cat's milk. You know, there are many, many other options." This led The Daily Telegraph, among others, to report the press conference under the headline, "Drink rats' milk, says Heather Mills."

Mills and her friends have cited this as an example of the media's "utter lack of any integrity," because, they say, it was obvious she was arguing that drinking cows' milk is as unnatural as drinking the milk of any other animal. Juliet Gellatley said, "The reporters who filed this story about Heather advocating rats’ milk knew it was untrue because I amplified on what Heather had said ... 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, "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."

Other

Mills has continued to work with amputees. In addition to promoting the distribution of prostheses around the world, she has been involved with the development of the "Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis," which gives amputees in America the chance to wear a Dorset Orthopaedic cosmesis without needing to travel to the UK. She is also a vice-president of the Limbless Association. In 2003, the Open University 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, and in the same year, the University of California, Irvine gave her their 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. She is also a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association Adopt-A-Minefield programme.

Mills was one of the celebrity performers showcased during the U.S. television series Dancing with the Stars in 2007. She was eliminated from the show in the sixth week of competition on April 24,2007, donating £50,000 of her £110,000 fee for appearing on the show to Viva!.

Separation from McCartney

Mills and McCartney announced their separation in 2006, leading to an acrimonious divorce battle, the run-up to which was played out in public, most notably in the British tabloids.

In March 2008, Mills was awarded £24.3 million ($48.7 million), plus payments of £35,000 ($70,000) per annum, and nanny and school costs for their daughter, Beatrice. In his judgment, Mr Justice Bennett described Mills as a "kindly person" who is devoted to her charitable causes, with a strong-willed and determined personality, who has shown great fortitude in overcoming her disability, and who argued her case with a "steely, yet courteous, determination." He added that he regretted to say her testimony appeared "inconsistent and inaccurate", and "less than candid." Feelings reportedly ran high during the hearing, to the point where Mills poured a jug of water over the head of McCartney's solicitor, Fiona Shackleton.

Public image

The relationship with McCartney triggered considerable media interest in Mills, much of it negative. Subsequent to their separation, the attitude of the British press, particularly the tabloids, has often been hostile and, at times, frenzied. They have accused her of embellishing her life story, of being a former prostitute, and of having married McCartney for his money. She frequently accuses them of misquoting her, and of using material out of context to give as negative as possible an impression of her. She told the Evening Standard that the claims that she had married McCartney for his money were more hurtful than losing her leg.

In October 2006, she announced her intention to sue the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and The Sun. The Sun, which regularly refers to her as "Mucca" (a play on McCartney's nickname "Macca", responded by asking her to "tick the boxes" on a series of allegations the newspaper has made, stating, "It is not clear what exactly she plans to sue us about." The paper then asked: "Come on Heather, what exactly did we get wrong? Is it that you're a ..." Underneath the open question, the Sun listed 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 had received "death threats," and on December 17, 2006, police warned that a "non-specific threat" had been made to her safety. This led to more criticism that she was dialling the emergency services too often. In March 2007, Kevin Moore, Chief Superintendent of Sussex Police, said that she was running "the risk of being treated as the little boy who cried wolf." He said, "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 responded that the police had encouraged her to contact them when she was being harassed.

Mills has been accused by several newspapers of having embellished her life story. For example, the journalist Heather Mills, then at The Observer, has accused Mills of impersonating her for over a year in the late 1990s, and the BBC reported a claim from her mother's former partner that Mills had not, in fact, run away from home as a teenager as she had earlier claimed. Another reported claim of Mills was that in 2001 she had been offered peerage (to be Baroness Mills) by then British PM Tony Blair and a "Lord Macdonald" (an ITV documentary interviewed three Lord Macdonalds none of which could remember ever meeting her), described as "incredible lies" by the reporter.

The tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, has alleged that she was involved in prostitution during an earlier period of her life. Mills has strongly denied the allegation, and has said that the article caused her great distress.

In 2002 she accepted damages of £50,000 plus costs from the Sunday Mirror over false claims that the Charity Commission investigated her over money she had raised for an Indian earthquake victims appeal in 2001.

During several interviews in October 2007, Mills accused the media of giving her "worse press than a paedophile or a murderer." She also criticised the media over the treatment of the late Princess Diana – who, according to Mills, was "chased and killed" by paparazzi – and of 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 alleged that the breakdown of the marriage was caused by Stella McCartney, whom she described as "jealous" and "evil".

Criticism of the press coverage

The extent and nature of the British press coverage of Mills has been criticised. Publicist Mark Borkowski writes in the Independent on Sunday that, "Not since the cult of Myra Hindley have we encountered so much vitriol aimed at one woman." Headlines about her typically include words such as "whore," "hysterical," or "liar," and photographs are routinely chosen that show her from awkward angles. Feminist writer Natasha Walter has compared the coverage to that of Britney Spears, while Kira Cochrane, writing in The Guardian, has said that "every misogynist epithet available" has been used against Mills. "She has somehow become the vessel through which it is acceptable for both pundits and the public to express their very worst feelings about women."

Cristina Odone has said Mills is "a good-looking woman who does not play by the rules," and that this makes people, male and female, suspicious of her. "[W]e do not expect someone who has suffered a tragic accident, and an accident that has affected her looks and therefore her livelihood, to get up, dust herself off, one-legged, and ... snag herself a multimillionaire rock singer."

Cochrane writes that Mills has passed through the full gamut of the stereotypical roles reserved for women. When she first came to public attention, she was the "saint" for her work with landmine victims; she became the "muse" when McCartney fell in love with her; the "gold-digger" when the relationship deepened; the "evil stepmother" and the "second wife" when they married; and finally, when they split up, the "whore."

Publications

• A Single Step (2002). ISBN 0-446-53165-0
• with Ben Noakes. Life Balance: The Essential Keys to a Lifetime of Well Being (2006). ISBN 0718146670

External links

• Heather Mills
• Heather Mills at the Internet Movie Database