Heather Mills - Media Image and Criticism

Media Image and Criticism

Mills' relationship with McCartney triggered considerable media interest, but after her divorce, the attitude of the British media was hostile, as Mills was accused of embellishing her life story, being a former prostitute, a shoplifter, and of having married McCartney for his money. Mills frequently accuses the press of misquoting her, and of using material out of context to give a negative impression of her, telling the Evening Standard that the claims that she had married McCartney for his money were more hurtful than losing her leg.

Mills has been accused by several newspapers of having embellished her life story: journalist Heather Mills, then at The Observer, accused Mills of impersonating her for over a year in the late 1990s, showing people cuttings of articles the journalist had written, which helped Mills secure a job presenting The General TV show, which was a BBC programme about Southampton General Hospital. There were also doubts about Mills’ claim that she had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (because the Heather Mills Health Trust had given away thousands of prosthetic limbs to landmine victims), but the nomination cannot be proven because the identities of all nominees remain secret for 50 years.

Stapely (Mills' stepfather) disputed Mills' statement that her mother had nearly lost a leg in a car crash, after Mills said, "her leg was only hanging on by a tiny flap of skin and flesh ... miraculously the surgeons managed to insert a metal plate and reattach it". Stapely said that Mills' mother had suffered a leg injury after a car crash, but recovered and was "a keen tennis player" and that Mills, "is simply a very confused woman for whom reality and fantasy have become blurred". He died in January 2011.

Mills said that she had once been asked to stand for parliament by the three main political parties, and had been offered a peerage in 2001 (to become Baroness Mills) by the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and a certain "Lord Macdonald". An ITV documentary (McCartney vs McCartney: The Ex Files) interviewed three Lord Macdonalds, but not one of them could remember ever meeting Mills. British journalist Jasper Gerard, to whom Mills made the claims, also says she told him that she had cancelled a meeting with Bill Clinton in case her endorsement affected a US election outcome. Mills stated that she was once awarded the Outstanding Young Person of the Year award by the British Chambers of Commerce, but did not challenge newspapers after they discovered there was no such award.

In 2006, Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi billionaire businessman and Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon, were named in the News of the World as former clients of Mills from the time when she allegedly worked as an escort girl. Packer's son denied that his late father had been involved. The newspaper provided an affidavit from escort girl Denise Hewitt (who was paid £50,000 for the story), who said she worked with Mills providing sexual services and that Mills boasted of earning up to £10,000 in a single night. Mills often requested to work with two girls at a time "... to do a 'girlie scene'. By this I knew she meant lesbian sex" said Hewitt "I thought at the time that Heather may have been bisexual". To substantiate its claims, the News of the World questioned Abdul Khoury, who was Khashoggi's personal secretary from 1977 to 2005. Khoury affirmed the veracity of reports that Mills "had sex with him on a number of occasions in return for money. Mr Khashoggi was always very pleased with Heather's performance. She was very athletic in bed". The Daily Mail produced accounts of another escort girl, Petrina Montrose and of other friends confirming that Mills had worked with them as an escort girl on many occasions. Montrose said that once "when all three of them were in the bedroom, Heather had ‘tried it on' with Joanna and suggested lesbian sex". Through her lawyers, Mills denied ever having been an escort girl and said she would sue as soon as her divorce was concluded. This has not happened.

In October 2006, Mills announced her intention to sue The Daily Mail, The Sun and the Evening Standard. All the newspapers said that the stories "were obtained by proper methods and in accordance with good journalistic practice". The Sun, which regularly refers to Mills as "Mucca" - a play on McCartney's nickname "Macca" - responded by asking her to "tick the boxes" on a series of allegations the newspaper had made, stating, "It is not clear what exactly she plans to sue us about". Underneath the open questions, The Sun listed six allegations about her, with a blank box beside each one. The words beside the boxes read: "Hooker, Liar, Porn Star, Fantasist, Trouble Maker, Shoplifter".

In December 2006, Mills told the BBC that she had received death threats, and on 17 December 2006, police stated that a "non-specific threat" had been made to her safety. This led to more criticism that she was calling out the emergency services too often. In March 2007, Kevin Moore, Chief Superintendent of Sussex Police, said that Mills was running "the risk of being treated as the little boy who cried wolf", and added, "We do have to respond to a disproportionate high volume of calls from Heather Mills McCartney because of the situations she finds herself in, and this is regrettable as it takes officers away from other policing matters". Mills responded that the police had told her to contact them whenever she was being harassed.

During a 5-day trial in July 2007, it was revealed that Mills had been physically assaulted by Jay Kaycappa in Brighton. Kaycappa was a notorious paparazzo trying to photograph Mills while on shifts for a national newspaper and a regional press agency. Kaycappa, who had 132 previous criminal convictions, including perverting the course of justice, obtaining property by deception, driving offences and using ten aliases, was found guilty and sentenced to a 140-hour community order and ordered to pay Mills £100, plus £1,000 court costs.

During several interviews in October 2007, Mills accused the media of giving her "worse press than a paedophile or a murderer". She also criticised the media over the treatment of Diana, Princess of Wales - who, according to Mills, was "chased and killed" by paparazzi - and of Kate McCann. Immediately before giving these interviews, her PR adviser, Phil Hall (the ex-Editor of the News of the World), quit. In 2008, a survey commissioned by Marketing magazine showed Mills as one of the top five most hated celebrity women, along with Amy Winehouse, Victoria Beckham and Kerry Katona.

In December 2008, the Channel 4 television comedy series Star Stories broadcast a satirical mockumentary of Mills' life story from her point of view. In 2009, after petitioning the Press Complaints Commission in the UK about being lied about in the press, five British tabloids (The Sun, The Daily Express, News of the World, Sunday Mirror and Daily Mirror) publicly apologised to Mills about printing false, hurtful or defamatory stories about her. Another tabloid (the Daily Mail), sent a private letter of apology. The stories in question were not those alleging prostitution, lying, or being a fantasist, but more recent untrue stories concerning her daughter, false allegations of a romantic relationship, false suggestions regarding cosmetic surgery, and false accounts of her spending. On 4 May 2009, The Sun published a small paragraph saying that they have been asked to make clear that Mills "denies spending £10 million of her settlement; trying to sell her home to her ex-husband; masterminding a smear campaign against him; spending £1 million on a swimming pool, £0.5 million on staff wages and £6 million on properties as they had reported" and they regretted "the misunderstanding". Mills has complained that over 4,400 abusive articles about her have been published.