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Heather Mills McCartney

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Heather and Paul McCartney
Heather and Paul McCartney
This article is about Heather (nee Mills) McCartney, the wife of Paul McCartney.

Heather, Lady McCartney was born on the 12 January 1968 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. She is usually known as Heather Mills or Heather Mills McCartney She is a campaigner on behalf of several causes, including amputees, the curtailment of land mines and animal rights. A few months after she was born, she moved to Washington, then in County Durham. Her early career was as a glamour model. She is the estranged wife of the former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney; the couple announced their separation in May 2006. Just prior to Sir Paul's 64th birthday, it was announced that the couple would be divorcing.

Contents

Early career

Her early life was turbulent. Her mother left home when she was nine, leaving Heather and her siblings in the care of an abusive father. When her father went to prison, Heather moved to London to live with her mother. As a teenager she ran away from home and found herself homeless. Having tried several jobs, she used her business skills to work and successfully formed and sold businesses and began a career in modelling. [citation needed]

In 1988, while aged nineteen, she took part in a photoshoot with a male model with whom she performed simulated sexual acts. [1] The photos were published in a book entitled Die Freuden der Liebe (The Joys of Love). [2]. An American edition was published in the same year with the title Sex Games. The male model has stated the book project was presented to him as a sex manual, not pornography.

In 1990, she moved to what was then northern Yugoslavia (now Slovenia), to recover from an ectopic pregnancy. She arrived to witness the unfolding civil war first-hand. Over the following two years, she modelled to raise funds for refugees of the war, commuting between Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and the UK and working with government agencies to establish refugee crisis centers, hospitals and housing for the homeless.

Accident and leg amputation

In August 1993, she was hit by a police motorcycle while crossing the road near London's Kensington Palace; her injuries included crushed ribs and a punctured lung. She needed a metal plate put into her pelvis and also the amputation of her left leg below the knee [3]. Mills McCartney 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. She later sold her story of recovery following the accident to a British tabloid, with details of how she and her boyfriend made love in her hospital bed.

Following the accident she arranged for unwanted prostheses to be sent from the United Kingdom to the war-torn former Yugoslavia.

Marriage to Paul McCartney

Heather Mills married Sir Paul 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 McCartney is stepmother to Sir Paul's children from his marriage to Linda: ceramics designer Heather McCartney, photographer Mary McCartney Donald, top fashion designer Stella McCartney, and musician and sculptor James McCartney.

On 28 October 2003, Mills McCartney gave birth to the couple's only child together, a daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney. The baby was named after Heather's late mother Beatrice and Sir Paul's Aunt Milly. On 17 May 2006 it was officially announced via the couple's websites that she was to separate from her husband. Media speculation in the weeks prior to this had been intense. In the London newspaper the Evening Standard on 18 May 2006, Mills McCartney told of the hurt she felt over claims she'd only married Sir Paul for his money, and she said "I am no gold digger" and that the allegations were "worse than losing my leg." 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 Paul McCartney's wealth).

On July 30, 2006, Paul McCartney filed for divorce from Heather Mills citing "unreasonable behaviour." In Britain, a divorce or dissolution of marriage can be made in as little as six weeks. However, Mills McCartney has vowed to fight the case in both Britain and America. People magazine reports that Mills will be "filing her own counterclaim about matters in both countries".[citation needed]

It was widely reported in the UK media on 9 August 2006 that Mills McCartney has instructed the divorce lawyer Anthony Julius, who works for the London law-firm Mishcon de-Reya and handled the divorce negotiations in 1996 for Diana, Princess of Wales. Her estranged husband is said to have retained the services of Prince Charles's divorce lawyer Fiona Shackleton.

Activism and awards

Mills McCartney is an activist for several causes, particularly against the use of landmines, for which she received the inaugural Unesco Children in Need Award. In 2004 the Open University awarded her with a honorary doctorate. The University of California, Irvine honored Heather 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.

Work for the UN

She is currently a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association.

Work for amputees

In addition to promoting distribution of prostheses worldwide, she has been involved with the development of the "Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis" [4] [5] 'to give amputees in America a chance to wear a Dorset Orthopaedic cosmesis without the need to visit us here in the UK'.

Work against the seal hunt

In March 2006, Heather Mills McCartney and her husband 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, and where the hunt is of cultural and economic significance. Due to the intense media attention, the couple debated with Newfoundland's premier Danny Williams on Larry King Live.

Work against fur trade

Heather Mills McCartney 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 ad for PETA's "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur" campaign [6].

Work against landmines

Sir Paul and Mills McCartney are both patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield, and proceeds from her updated autobiography, A Single Step, will be donated to the cause.

Criticisms

This article or section does not cite its references or sources and has therefore been removed

Trivia

Allegedly:

  • At 14, she was homeless and lived under a bridge in London. For four months, before moving in with friends, she stole food and clothes to survive. She also spent time with a carnival.[9]
  • In early 1989, after becoming more established as a model, she and her mother reconciled. Then her mother went in for minor surgery and never returned; a blood clot moved into her lungs and heart, and she died.[10]
  • While in hospital, she let reporters into her hospital room and sold her story to the highest bidder. During the next month, she earned about $250,000. [11]
  • While she was engaged to be married to Chris Terrill, a film maker, she met Sir Paul and abandoned her fiancé only days before the wedding [12]. After a period of going out with each other, in March 2000 Mills and Sir Paul announced they were in love. It is not known if she told him about her change of plans for her earlier marriage. He eventually proposed with a diamond and sapphire ring he had purchased in India. [13].
  • Mills McCartney was a journalist for the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, for which she wrote an on-going column.[citation needed]


External links

Bibliography

  • A Single Step (ISBN 0446531650)
  • Life Balance - the Essential Keys to a Lifetime of Well Being (ISBN 9780718146672 )

Sources

 


Original article / information obtained (seeded) from Wikipedia [3]