After McCartney Split, Mills Fights Tabloid Porn Claims
LONDON, June 14, 2006 — -- "Bisexual Heather sold her body to Arabs for years," screams the headline in a trashy British newspaper.
If you believe tabloid-newspaper News of the World, Heather McCartney Mills was once a high-class hooker.
It's been a difficult couple of months for Mills. She split from her husband, Sir Paul McCartney, the aging Beatle. She underwent more surgery on her partially amputated leg. Then came the smut.
Photos of a young Mills cavorting naked with a cheesy-looking male model were splashed across the pages of various scurrilous newspapers. The shots came from a German book called "Die Freuden der Liebe" -- "The Joy of Love."
The papers called it a "hard core porn book." Mills has described it as a lover's manual. Displaying wonderful faux sensitivity, The Sun explained, "Many of the images are too explicit to print in a family newspaper."
Now the News of the World alleges that, among other things, in the 1980's Mills had sex with Arab princes and businessmen, sometimes had sex with other women in front of her clients, and could command fees of up to $18,500 for a night.
Heather has crusaded against landmines after losing a leg when she was hit by a police motorcycle in 1993. In the past few years she's expanded her activisim to protest seal clubbing. She married Sir Paul in 2002 and the couple have a baby daughter, Beatrice.
Mills Denies Charges, Threatens Lawsuit
Mills' lawyers say the claims in the News of the World are "untrue and highly defamatory." Apparently Mills plans to sue the paper as soon as her divorce from McCartney is complete. We're told she's "very distressed" by the News of the World article.
"These are not new stories and were refuted by her lawyers four years ago when first raised," Mills' lawyers' said in a statement. "The sources clearly are a variety of unreliable persons who have been paid for these stories."
Back then newspapers decided not to print the allegations. In the meantime, while Mills was married to McCartney, the British papers considered her pretty much off-limits. McCartney is a hugely popular figure in Britain, and the populist papers knew better than to bash the bride of a national institution.
Since the split has been announced, however, the gloves have come off spectacularly. When the McCartneys announced their impending divorce, they blamed the media for their problems.
They said that they "found it increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship with constant intrusion into our private lives." The media intrusion has only gotten worse.
The male model who appeared with Mills in "Die Freuden der Liebe" has given his account of the photo shoot to newspaper writers. It's not flattering.
"She was too much," Peter Wilson told The Sunday Mirror. "Standing there naked and unashamed. She was like a bloke with t--." Other papers have printed recent snaps of Mills in a bikini on the beach, describing her as "gaunt and lonely."
Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit will stop the slew of smutty stories. It's unclear when the divorce will be finalized.
McCartney, who is worth more than $150 million, did not sign a prenuptial agreement. Amid the firestorm of allegations, he is sticking by his estranged wife.
He's urging the media to leave her alone.
When they were still together, Mills was known in the tabloids as "Lady Macca" -- a reference to McCartney's old nickname. Now she's been dubbed "Lady Mucca."