Paul McCartney announces separation from Heather Mills McCartney

From The Guardian, May 18, 2006:

Sir Paul McCartney has separated from Heather Mills McCartney, the second wife he fell for passionately but who struggled to win the approval of his family or the popular press.

The couple announced their split yesterday after less than four years of marriage in a statement that blamed their inability to conduct a “normal” relationship on the “constant intrusion into our private lives”. But their parting shot at the media only triggered a new round of speculation about how much of Sir Paul’s estimated £800m fortune Ms Mills McCartney could claim as the mother of their two-year-old daughter, Beatrice Milly.

Despite the bulk of the former Beatle’s fortune being acquired well before meeting the former underwear model at a charity function seven years ago, divorce lawyers estimated that the 38-year-old, who once slept rough under Waterloo Bridge, could pocket up to £200m. According to Ms Mills McCartney, Sir Paul, who is 64 next month, refused to sign a prenuptial agreement before their marriage in June 2002.

Sir Paul took to his website to dismiss suggestions that his second wife had married him for money: “There is not an ounce of truth in this. She is a very generous person who spends most of her time trying to help others in greater need than herself. I’m very sad to see that some insensitive people would choose a moment like this to spread these vicious rumours.” […]

From Wikipedia:

[…] After some time apart, Mills and McCartney separated on 17 May 2006. In November 2007, Mills gave a number of interviews, saying that the breakdown of the marriage was caused by her husband’s daughter, Stella, whom she described as ‘jealous’ and ‘evil’. Mills had previously talked with New York magazine, saying Stella had once issued a press release confirming how much she liked her new stepmother, although Stella’s publicist denied that such a statement had ever been issued.

After dismissing Anthony Julius, a Mishcon de Reya lawyer, Mills stated she would represent herself in the upcoming divorce hearing, with help from her sister Fiona, David Rosen, a solicitor-advocate, and Michael Shilub, an American attorney. In leaked documents, Mills complained that McCartney was often drunk, smoked cannabis, stabbed her with a broken wine glass, pushed her over a table, and pushed her into a bathtub when she was pregnant. Referring to her part in the marriage, Mills said that she had been a full-time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner, and psychologist to McCartney. McCartney’s lawyers studied Mills’s book: Life Balance: The Essential Keys to a Lifetime of Wellbeing (2006), as it contradicted many of her claims, such as when she praised McCartney for ‘Bringing me breakfast in bed every morning, no matter how he feels, and I do the dinner, so we’ve got that agreement. It’s thoughtfulness.’ Mills’s father reconciled with her, after meeting her and McCartney when they introduced him to his granddaughter, Beatrice. After their separation, he said that it ‘took guts to represent yourself at the High Court’, and that he was proud of his daughter, even though he thought she would be ‘torn to shreds’ by McCartney’s lawyers. […]

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