Heather Mills Comes Clean: Love, Marriage, Divorce, Wings, Yoko, and More

Few celebrities have weathered as many extreme ups and downs as Heather Mills. On one hand, the ex-Mrs. Paul McCartney is known by such tags as “Mucca” or “the most hated woman in Britain”; on the other hand, she has managed to carve out a wide-ranging career including lauded charity work, stints on reality TV, and Alpine ski racing — Mills, who lost her lower leg in an 1993 accident, is a multi-medalist for the British Paralympic ski team.

Still, the 47-year-old’s acrimonious 2008 divorce with the Beatle has remained, publicly at least, the centerpiece of her life. In a new interview with Event magazine, she comes clean about some of the reasons behind the split.

Mills is completely frank in the chat, making a slew of provocative statements that are sure to raise eyebrows. She claims: “Losing my leg was easier to cope with [than divorce],” adding that she was “completely in love” with McCartney.

Indeed, as she notes, she has no regrets about the marriage, even though it ended disastrously. “He had so much energy — he was a cross between Peter Pan and Captain Hook,” Mills recalls. “I wasn’t even a Beatles fan. I barely even knew any of the songs. I liked one song by Wings but that was it. He loved that.”

In what might be one of the best understatements of all time, Mills reveals, “for some reason it’s very hard to be married to a Beatle,” adding that her predecessor, the late Linda McCartney, “had it tough.”

As for the most famous (or infamous) Beatle wife, Yoko Ono? “She’s a very wise, very lovely woman,” Mills approves.

Still, Mills does seem to take some of the blame for the split on her own shoulders. When asked why she thinks the marriage ended, she says, “I say what I think. If I think something is wrong I’ll say it. If I wasn’t that type of person we’d still be married now.

“For years I was attracted to these very strong, powerful men who think they want a strong woman but actually they want someone who does what they want.”

Mills met McCartney in 1999 and married him in 2002. They separated in 2006, although the marriage formally ended in 2008. The pair have a daughter, Beatrice, together; the financial terms of their divorce settlement left Mills and her child extraordinarily well-set for life.

However, Mills claims she’s “given 80 percent” of her wealth away to charities, including her much-documented work providing prosthetic limbs to landmine victims.

“I’m not interested in money,” she says, adding that she does not hire security, flies economy, and buys her clothes from chain stores such as Topshop. “I just [want] a simple life with my daughter.”

One other thing she’s definitely not interested in? Mills is adamant she will not marry again. “Never, never, never,” she states. “I’m single, I want to have fun, but I don’t want to be married. It’s one thing I’m absolutely sure about.”