Just wondering whether anyone on the forum has?

Handy Andy from Changing Rooms.

A friend of mine met her a few years ago.
It was after her accident, which had been well documented in the newspapers etc at the time. And, most people were very impressed with the positive attitude she had to the devastating injuries she had received.
It was a meeting to do with women in film. Something like that. Obviously it was nearly all women, and Heather was there networking relentessly and, rather obviously. She would introduce herself to everyone, regardless of wether they were in the middle of a conversation, "I'm the model that lost a leg in a road accident". Trouble is, most people don't want people interrrupting their conversations, they prefer them to wait until they are finished. So, she was not that popular and came across as rather pushy.
But, having said that, I can't help but admire her for her resilience, determination and, I have to say, her courage at the massive blow to anyone so young and even more so someone who relied on their looks to make a living.
Yes, Heather can be an absolute nightmare! Can you imagine living with her? No Thankyou! But, what a strong strong character. I would love to have her strengh and positive attitude when I needed it. If I had lost a leg I can't imagine reacting any where near as well as she did.
I am not a Heather Mills fan. I'm not keen on Paul McCartney either. Except for the music.
But, I just can't help wishing that I had Heather's ability to pull myself up, from the very depth of despair. Which must have started when she saw her leg, still in the sock and trainer, lying on the road beside her.
I just cannot help allowing her a little slack.

I've never met her, but my closest friends ex girlfriend was her beautician for a while - evidentially she was "very demanding" and never tipped, she made my friends ex feel very nervous.

I cant really understand why she feels the need to do DOI - why on earth is it so important to these so called celebs that the 'general public' like them

I have never met Heather Mills but she is a person for whom I have a lot of respect based on what I have read about her, and from interviews with her, pre McCartney. Marrying him did her little good (apart from her pocket of course), though I understand that a woman who has lost part of a limb is vulnerable to perverts and she knew that Paul McCartney was not in that category given what he went through with Linda, her mastectomy etc. So I can understand the initial attraction and have no doubt it was all genuine on both sides to start off with. Plus they have their lovely little girl so when all the dust settles (eventually), and they can hopefully become at least friendly, their marriage will not have been in vain.

I don't like Heather Mills being a hate figure, she has done plenty of worthwhile work and the fact that she just got on with things after being quite severely disfigured (try and put yourself in her place, she was very young then), is admirable.

She is a bit chavvy compared with what Paul was used to and I think that became glaringly obvious. Still she is a strong woman, a person in her own right and I wish her well.

But thats just it, she hasn't just got on with things. She has self publicised over and over again despite saying she does not like the media - ahem, earth calling planet Heather, one goes with the other - and she has constantly been caught out with lies both before and after her marriage to Paul McCartney.

It seems from childhood friends most of her autobiography is fiction, she has stated that 9 countries rely on her charity work yet, when asked to produce evidence of her charity work/outgoings in the divorce case, she could not because her accountant had "lost" the relevant paperwork
The presiding Judge in the divorce said she was not a creditable witness. Now thats quite a thing for a Judge to say in a divorce case.

Even on DOI she lied twice and there was no need. She stated there were 6000 followers on her website, there are actually under 2000. Then she said she had never heard of amputees skating yet a simple Google search will give many examples, there are even amputee ice hockey teams who compete in their own competition for goodness sake.

Most people who give to charity do it quietly and without fanfare. To keep the topic close to home McCartney gives greatly to charity, especially in the Liverpool area but he doesn't go on TV shouting about it. George Harrison gave much to charity during his lifetime and Yoko Ono, despite her reputation with the media (which has softened in later years admittedly) gives to many many causes, again supporting Liverpool organisations regularly amongst them.

Heather will never win people over for two reasons. One is because most of what she says gets easily proven as being economical with the truth and the second is her attempts to drag McCartney's name through the mud when they split up. Like them or not The Beatles are the world's darlings, not just Britain's and with only two left alive the defence built around Paul and Ringo is immense. Forget all that nonsense that Ms Mills quotes about being more popular in the USA. She is not, they put her in the same bracket as many in the UK.

Attention seeking gold digging fantasist - its harsh but can anyone find any real evidence that she isn't ?

With a name like beatlesaint its pretty obvious you aren't going to be impartial in you're views.

maybe not but I havent put any facts in the main body of my post that are not true.....the line you quote is my opinion admittedly.....not like i am alone tho is it ?

I have never met Heather Mills, but I do have some respect for her. Only because she didn't want to use her Ex-Husband's name for profit. Unlike Phil Collins' third wife (Miss Cevey), who continues to use the Collins name to promote her business.

She`d use her ex-husband`s name for profit if she could!
McCartney actually copyrighted his name just before they split up....

the wife has. She used to nanny for someone who runs an animal rites charity. she says Heather is a nice lady.

I agree about celebs doing charity work without a fanfare (I've heard Simon Cowell is another one).

Yet Heather skates onto the ice announced as 'Charity Campaigner Heather Mills'

To me she tries to portray herself as some kind of Princess Diana figure, especially doing the land mines thing.

I have read her autobiography and watched the documentary about her - her ex husband and other former friends painted a picture of a compulsive liar and fantasist.

I remember her appearing on the front page of the newspapers when she had her accident. It was very sad indeed. However, she was described as a "Top Model" yet no-one had ever heard of her. She has since admitted that she saw a PR opportunity and grasped it - hats off to her - how many people think like that?


Harsh. But true.

I'd dispute the bit about her saying there weren't any other ice-skating amputees out there. The transcript seems to indicate that all she said was she'd not met one, T&D hadn't met one and that she hadn't found one from whom to ask advice. Which is different from her denying they exist at all.

I also think a lot of your post seems to be facts reported from the media rather than facts that are directly substantiated by independent sources. Call me picky, but I'd prefer not to assume they're all true without proper references.

I doubt very much that somebody as good at staying in the public eye as Heather Mills is entirely without guile or ruthlessness - but I also doubt she's nearly as black as you're attempting to paint her.

What an insightful post - she was model dependent upon her looks and she lost her leg. It must have been devastating. She had to come to terms with being an amputee, have weeks of rehabilitation and physiotherapy to learn to walk again. Whatever anyone thinks of Heather Mills - she has a positive attitude and has real strength of character. There is an old Indian saying: "Never judge a man until you've walked for two weeks in his moccasins".

It is very easy to sling abuse but like louislavinia I will cut Heather a little slack. She may be a nightmare but driven people normally are.

He is. A lot of his money is quietly syphoned to various charities, mostly childrens and animal charities. No press announcement every single time but I have it on good authority that it happens a lot and in fact a lot of his new income is used in this way.

Plus, he has reportedly left over £80 million to charity in his will as he has no dependants etc. Of course, until he pops his clogs, there is no way of verifying it. But to be honest, from the odd stories I have heard of sudden kindnesses he has done for people he has no reason necessarily to help (the family in US for example after he met them on Oprah) I have no real reason to doubt the story.

See, I mean no offence to Ms Mills, even though I don't like her. But Simon Cowell is much more of a saint than she is, and yet he is perceived quite differently.

Good luck to her in the skating though. Don't think I will ever particularly like her, but I admire her for giving it a go, and indeed for doing so well.

Well, whether you love her or hate her, you have to admire her strength.

I don't think I'd ever step foot outside the house after all the abuse.

Never met her - but in fairness to all the grief she gets - "Sir" Paul certainly isn't the nicest of people either.

Proper references ? Ok, well as another poster has stated there was a documentary where friends and an ex husband or fiance gave examples of here fantasy world. Quite disturbing was the story of abuse that her and a friend had suffered at the hands of a swimming instructor. She went as far as naming the friend in her book and that friend stated that the incidents Mills talked abut never happened as she described them and she did not even have the decency to ask the poor woman is she could name her.

The quotes from the Judge about her n ot being a creditable witness were widely reported by the press admittedly BUT they are also reproduced in the transcript of the case which the Judge allowed to be made public.

And then there was the infamous GMTV interview with Fiona Phillips simmering and simpering all over her where Ms Mills stated quite a lot, as you may recall, so I guess an independent source would not be required when it has come from the horses mouth.

I am not attempting to paint her black, but you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear can you ?

I think there is something really mean and petty about Paul.
Yes Heather may have driven him crazy but he wasn't very nice to her either so they can call it quits.
But to copyright his name, it leaves a nasty taste. She was his wife after all and the mother of his daughter Beatrice.
And you mention he did it before they split up.
This man has a very nasty streak running through him.

Over the years I have read and heard some pretty nasty things about Paul McCartney.
These stories have not appeared as front page news or sensationalised in any way. They are just occasional reports from various people, including word of mouth, who knew him and Linda. So it has all gone under the radar. He is extremely tight with his cash as well as being very self important and domineering. In public he is very different and puts on this jolly easy going image, which, couldn't be further from the truth.
His music is the only good thing about him. Most, if not all, of his best stuff was written when he was with the Beatles.
He did a couple of good albums the best being Band on the Run. Not much after that really.

Yes - look at the tight swine: (from the regarded http://www.looktothestars.org/celebr...paul-mccartney)

Hosted PETA's “Party of the century” gala in 1999, honouring his late wife Linda and those who have committed themselves to carrying on her work for animals.

In 2000, McCartney released A Garland For Linda, a choral tribute album to his wife, who died of breast cancer. Proceeds went to The Garland Appeal, a fund to aid cancer patients.

He was instrumental in organizing the Concert For New York City in 2001.

McCartney performed at the Live 8 concert in London on 2 July 2005, playing “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” with U2.

He is a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield.

In 2003, he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollars to the charity.

In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the “US Campaign for Burma”, in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

He organized the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea in 1979.

He performed on Band Aid’s charity single, and took part in Live Aid.

I haven't met her but saw her at a PMc concert. She had on a very tight top, tight leggings, massive heels and dark sunglasses (it was an evening concert). She looked ridiculous. She had a lacky bringing her (but not her entourage) cold beers at regular intervals (altho she says she doesn't drink).

You cant do that can you? Do you mean nobody in the world called McCartney can ever call a son of theirs Paul?

First off I'm not sticking up for anyone or slagging them off either but it can be very handy to raise money and also give it to charity, you can claim it against tax etc so when you have a lot of cash coming in it can be very useful under the current tax laws to use the charity card against your earnings.
This is why so many celebs give to charity, it helps them out also. If you raise money for charity then you can claim certain items against it that you may well have bought anyway but if the charity card is used you can claim it back.
It's the way the govt encourages sponsorship and relinquishes their responsibility for a certain area.
If we had no charities doing so much work for certain causes then it would be the govt's responsibility and the causes would not be held to ransom when a recession hits.