Celebrity Mound

PAUL McCartney will never escape Heather Mills. The former nudie model wants a house in every city where McCartney owns one, reports Britain’s Sun. “She’s determined to carry on living the privileged life she had with Paul,” the paper says. “Wherever Paul is, she wants to be there for daughter Beatrice. And Bea should have the same life with her as with Paul. Heather says that she wants the country house, one in London, one in New York, one in LA, even one in the Hamptons.” Meanwhile, Mills has angered a former schoolmate in England, who told Page Six she’s “just one of many victims she has left along the way.” Fiona McAndrew says Mills wrote a newspaper story in 1994 that blasted McAndrew for getting breast implants for free on the National Health Service while a boy with cancer waited 10 months for bone implant surgery. McAndrew says she was “shunned in the street” after the story ran. She recently wrote to Mills, “I wonder if now you know how it feels to be publicly flogged . . . I remember you from school, that little girl who stood telling us how you had to go to London as your father was going to prison. To think I actually felt sorry for you!”

She was less than four minutes into the rant when everyone started to pray for another gagging order.

Surely Heather Mills couldn’t drag out much longer a simple statement to convey her joy that the case was over and that she was more than £24million richer?

Oh yes she could. She was centre stage now and she wasn’t going to let the moment pass.

In a remarkable performance on the steps of the High Court, she gave a triumphant wave for the cameras – and delivered her account of the settlement with barely concealed venom for the way it had come about.

It brought to a close the secretive and acrimonious wrangling over their broken marriage and Heather’s financial future.

Or rather it would have done, had not the 40-year-old ex-model announced her determination to appeal today against the judge’s decision to make details of the case public.

So her obvious anger was directed mostly at that, and not at the amount of money she managed to cream from the Macca fortune for herself and their daughter Beatrice.

But good grief, it took her long enough to say it.

Across the marble floor of the High Court came the Fab One, down the front steps with a catwalk wiggle and a flick of her hair.

She wore a blood-red blouse and a satisfied smile. She was pleased the case was over and she had secured “an incredible result”. But she was clearly furious at the way details of the judgement were being released.

Poor old Heather. Here she was with a mere £24million settlement, probably enough to buy only a few streets in her native Tyne and Wear.

Who could blame the girl if she felt bitter? But no. She was “very, very happy” with the financial settlement, she told us – even though it emerged that she had sought nearly £125million, and that her former husband had offered £15.8million.

From the Heather Mills manual of marriage guidance came this advice: couples should always do their best to resolve their problems instantly.

“Anybody wanting to go through a divorce, try your hardest, man or woman, to settle it immediately.

“And if you’re in an impossible situation – which anybody listening will know that, people don’t see eye to eye, things get out of hand – you can be a litigant in person.”

“The power of one” was how she described it. She labelled herself as “a campaigning girl” and urged others not to be frightened to represent themselves in court, even though, she insisted, the legal system didn’t approve of it.

Two years preparing for this day had made her impressively fluent in legal-speak (albeit with a Geordie twang that made the word “litigant” delightfully difficult to distinguish).

On and on she went. On the TV screens, only reporters and policemen could be seen in the background.

It made it look at first as if she was alone, a fitting image for her unrepresented battle against the McCartney might and millions.

In fact she was there with her sister Fiona – whom she introduced as a tireless supporter of her crusade – plus a minder and that essential chaperone for anyone contemplating a similar court battle, her personal trainer.

It was Fiona, at her side, who prompted her from time to time when Heather appeared to leave out some of the tastier titbits from the settlement.

The judge had found no evidence that McCartney was worth more than £400million, for example, even though “everyone knows” he’s been worth twice that for the last 15 years, Heather asserted.

The payout? That would be used to secure her own and her daughter’s future, she said.

She also planned to “make a difference” with some of the charities she supported. It took her only 33 words before she mentioned that.

Later she suggested the £600,000 she saved in legal fees might easily have gone to charity, although she didn’t specify one.

Particular poison was reserved for Sir Paul’s lawyer, Fiona Shackleton. Miss Mills spoke her name with the same kind of disgust that an estranged wife normally reserves for the other woman.

“Fiona Shackleton has very sadly handled this in the worst manner you could ever, ever imagine. She has called me many, many names before even meeting me when I was in a wheelchair.”

Of course, the world would never have heard any of this had the judgement remained private.

“I wouldn’t even be standing here,” Heather insisted, because there was a gagging order on her not to reveal marital confidences.

Well all right then. Maybe just a little one from post-separation days. “I wasn’t allowed to look at what we spent,” Heather told us.

“I was locked out of every home. I won’t go into all the horrific details of what has happened because I’m just glad it’s over.”

And so was everyone else. She had already delivered something approaching 2,000 words.

More is to follow. Today she begins her battle to suppress the court ruling, or at least try to keep some of the personal detail out of the public domain. And after that?

“I really hope now that me and my daughter can have a life and not be followed every single day. That’s why I’ve come out – to give it closure.”

Somehow, you got the feeling the Heather Mills story might not be closed quite yet.

(source)

Paul McCartney and Heather Mills’ weeklong divorce hearing ended Monday without a deal, and a judge will now impose a settlement on the warring couple.

As legal teams left court, McCartney’s lawyer Nicholas Mostyn told reporters that judge Hugh Bennett had reserved his ruling. The judge will now spend several weeks working out a settlement.

Mills and McCartney separated in 2006 after four years of marriage. They went to court to decide on Mills’ share of the former Beatle’s fortune, which is estimated at as much as $1.6 billion.

Mills, 40, smiled as she left London’s Royal Courts of Justice with her entourage. McCartney, 65, did not attend, although he was in court to face his estranged wife every day last week.

Media reports have suggested McCartney offered his wife around S$50 million and that she was seeking at least double that amount.

Few details have emerged from Court 34 since the hearing began Feb. 11. Unlike most British court cases, divorce proceedings are heard in private, and the courtroom is closed to journalists and the public.

The terms of a settlement will not become public unless it is challenged in the Court of Appeal, or one of the parties chooses to reveal details.

Mills is a former model whose left leg was amputated below the knee after a motorcycle accident in 1993. She became active in campaigning against land mines and in favor of animal welfare.

The couple married in June 2002 – four years after the death of McCartney’s first wife, Linda – and their daughter Beatrice was born in October the following year. They announced their separation in 2006, and McCartney filed for divorce alleging “unreasonable behavior” by his wife.