Best Known As: Fashion Figure

Gist:  Heather Anne Mills (born 12 January 1968) is an English charity campaigner and former model and the former wife of musician Sir Paul McCartney; during the marriage she was called Heather Mills McCartney. Mills has an older brother, Shane, a younger sister, Fiona and a half-sister, Claire.

Mills started her own model agency, in 1986 and married Alfie Karmal, on 6 May 1989, but divorced in 1991. Mills was living with her ski instructor Milos Pogacar in Croatia in 1990, just before the Croatian War started and later organized supplies for Croatia, accepting modelling assignments in Austria to pay for the trip. In London, in 1993, Mills was hit by a police motorbike and suffered serious injuries, losing her left leg, 6 inches below her knee. She later sold her story to the News of the World and used the proceeds to establish the Heather Mills Health Trust, which recycles discarded prosthetic limbs.

Mills met McCartney at a Pride of Britain charity event and they were married on 11 June 2002. Mills gave birth to Beatrice Milly McCartney on 28 October 2003. Mills separated from McCartney in 2006, which led to a highly publicized divorce, in which she was awarded £24.3 million in a court settlement, on 17 March 2008. Mills is a patron of Viva, the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, vice-president of the Limbless Association and was formerly a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association Adopt-A-Minefield program. She continues to work on behalf of various campaigns, including aid for amputees, animal rights and for the banning of land mines. Mills was dropped by PETA after spending months helping and heading up their campaign to stop J.Crew from using fur from China. She succeeded and received an award from them only to be told by the McCartneys that they would not help PETA if she remained involved with them.

Life Facts:  Mills was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, to John "Mark" Francis Mills (a British ex-paratrooper) and his wife, Beatrice Mary Mills, née Finlay, who was the daughter of a colonel in the British Army. Mills' father was adopted at age seven and grew up in Brighton, where his foster parents had a grocery shop, although his foster-father also worked as a mechanic for a Grand Prix racing team. Her mother was born in India, during World War II, but was educated at English boarding schools. Mills' parents met at Newcastle University, and were married against the wishes of Finlay's father, who did not attend the wedding, and only saw his daughter once more before he died. When Mills was six-years-old, the family moved north to Alnwick, in Northumberland, Mills attended Usworth Grange Primary school, and then Usworth Comprehensive school in Washington. (She visited Usworth Comprehensive in 2003, as guest of honour at a prize-giving event and to support the school against plans for its closure).

Mills later wrote that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a swimming pool attendant when she was eight-years-old, Although having received a letter from Mills offering £10,000 to stop a court case, Ambler complained that the story had caused her deep discomfort by bringing the incident to national attention, so she sued for breach of privacy, accepting an out-of-court settlement of £5,000 in compensation, and £54,000 legal costs.

Mills' mother left home when Mills was nine-years-old, which left Mills, her older brother Shane, and her younger sister, Fiona, in the care of their father. later releasing home movies of family holidays in Lebanus, showing Mills playing happily). Mills later wrote that she often stole food from supermarkets as a child: "By ten I was an old hand. Pinching food was really quite easy I discovered."

Mills met McCartney at the Dorchester Hotel, where McCartney presented an award to an animal rights activist, McCartney also presented an award dedicated to his late wife, Linda McCartney. McCartney talked to Mills about donating to her charity ? later giving her £150,000. In the autumn of 1999 Mills and her sister recorded "VO!CE"; a song they wrote to raise funds for Mills' charity, with McCartney agreeing to sing backing vocals. After recording the song in Greece (where Mills? sister lived, running the independent label Coda Records) the sisters stayed overnight at McCartney's estate in Peasmarsh, Sussex, in early November, where McCartney added vocals to the song. Having sparked the interest of the tabloids about his appearances with Mills at events, McCartney appeared publicly beside her at a party in January 2000 to celebrate her 32nd birthday.

While on holiday in the Lake District McCartney proposed to Mills on 23 July 2001, giving her a £15,000 Former escort Denize Hewitt, then a friend, claims that Mills said she would give McCartney an ultimatum to marry her, and threatened to leave him if he refused.

In 2005, Mills became a patron of the British animal rights organisation Viva!, and the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, which are both run by Juliet Gellatley. In 2006, Mills and Gellatley attended a debate on fur at the Oxford Union, where she presented a video depicting the skinning of a dog. She posed with her own dog in an anti-fur advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which read: "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur".

In March 2006, Mills and McCartney travelled to Canada to bring attention to the country's annual seal hunt. Sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, they complained that the hunt was inhumane, and called on the Canadian government to put an end to it. Their arrival on the floes sparked much attention in Newfoundland and Labrador, where 90 percent of the sealers live. Mills and McCartney protested against seals being clubbed to death, pierced with boat hooks and sometimes skinned alive. Mills joined a Viva! film team at a pig farm in Somerset, in February 2007, to publicise the use of restrictive farrowing crates, which are used for sows who are suckling piglets. A video of the investigation was made available on the Internet. Mills' relationship with PETA ended in 2007, when McCartney's daughter, Mary, said she would not continue to take photographs for the organisation if Mills was involved with them. As the McCartney family had been supporters of PETA for many years, a PETA representative told the New York Post: "Heather's exposé of the Chinese fur industry remains one of most popular videos on our site, but we don't have any imminent campaigns planned with her."

Wearing a green t-shirt saying, "Vegan, you can't get greener", She went on to say: "You have 25 other alternate milks in many health stores and supermarkets. It's kind of bizarre. Why don't we drink rat's milk or dog's milk or cat's milk? You know, there are many, many other options". This led The Daily Telegraph, among others, to report the press conference under the headline, "Drink Rats' Milk, says Heather Mills".

In 2008, an old video surfaced of Mills wearing a mink coat she had owned in 1989, but explained to reporters that she had bought it years before becoming involved in animal rights organisations or vegetarianism. Although she had separated from McCartney, Mills said: "It's only since I met Paul [McCartney] that I really got to understand how vegetarianism not only benefits your health massively but also makes a huge difference to the planet, to animals, and to feeding the world". In August 2008, she was honoured by the organization FARM (Farm Animals Reform Movement) with the Celebrity Activist Award.

After her divorce, Mills pledged to give a "large portion" of her £24.3 million divorce settlement to Adopt-A-Minefield, but the charity has not received any of it currently.

Mills lives in Robertsbridge, Sussex, and in an exclusive part of Hove, East Sussex. She continues to campaign for amputees, in addition to promoting the distribution of prostheses around the world, and has been involved with the development of the Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis, which gives amputees in America the chance to wear a Dorset Orthopaedic cosmesis, without having to travel to the UK. Mills is also vice-president of the Limbless Association. In 2003, the Open University awarded her an honorary doctorate for her philanthropic work on behalf of amputees. In 2004, she received a "Children in Need" award from the annual International Charity Gala in Düsseldorf, and in the same year, the University of California, Irvine gave her their 2004 Human Security Award, and created the Heather Mills McCartney Fellowship in Human Security to support graduate students conducting research on pressing human security issues. She is a former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association Adopt-A-Minefield programme.

Mills was one of the celebrity performers showcased during the U.S. television series Dancing with the Stars in 2007. She was eliminated from the show in the sixth week of competition on 24 April 2007, donating her entire fee (after taxes) for appearing on the show to Viva! On 1 December 2007, Neil Simpson published The Unsinkable Heather Mills: The Unauthorized Biography of the Great Pretender.

When McCartney planned a holiday with Beatrice at La Gazelle d'Or hotel in Morocco during April 2008, Mills faxed eight pages of instructions to the hotel on what her daughter should and cannot eat. She was insistent that Beatrice?s strict vegan diet should be adhered to, and was "driving the hotel staff mad, faxing both the head chef and manager instructions and recipe suggestions for Bea". McCartney was furious, as he had successfully brought up his children as vegetarians. McCartney suggested taking his daughter, Beatrice, on a world tour in 2008, but Mills insisted on rules that would have to be followed: she would accompany her daughter for the 14 months in a private jet, and no swearing would be allowed by musicians or road crew in front of her daughter.

In June 2008, Mills was asked to talk at a New York party about the cruelty of puppy farms and to promote her book about animals, but was angry about the guests speaking over her speech, saying: "Listen up at the back. I haven?t been up for 24 hours and flew here from London to be ignored." Mills's former publicist of four years, Michele Elyzabeth, decided to cease representing her on 25 July 2008.

According to several press reports on 11 November 2008, Mills had started a relationship with millionaire West End theatre producer Marc Sinden (who was previously linked with the model Jerry Hall). They were sighted in Monaco and photographed together for the first time at a private event at London's Tate Modern. The following month she was reported to have bought an apartment near to him in Hampstead Garden Suburbs 'billionaires row', The Bishops Avenue. In January 2009 the London Lite apologised "for any distress caused" for the way that they had been hounded by the photographer who took the shot of them visiting the Tate together, although the paper denied he had been following them and for any implication about their relationship, in spite of them having being seen arm-in-arm at a theatre and a restaurant only the night before and friends saying how 'close' they were. Recently Sinden has broken his usual "No comment about relationships" rule to defend Mills in the press against apparent media bias.

Career Facts:  Mills met McCartney at the Dorchester Hotel, where McCartney presented an award to an animal rights activist, McCartney also presented an award dedicated to his late wife, Linda McCartney. McCartney talked to Mills about donating to her charity ? later giving her £150,000. In the autumn of 1999 Mills and her sister recorded "VO!CE"; a song they wrote to raise funds for Mills' charity, with McCartney agreeing to sing backing vocals. After recording the song in Greece (where Mills? sister lived, running the independent label Coda Records) the sisters stayed overnight at McCartney's estate in Peasmarsh, Sussex, in early November, where McCartney added vocals to the song. Having sparked the interest of the tabloids about his appearances with Mills at events, McCartney appeared publicly beside her at a party in January 2000 to celebrate her 32nd birthday.

While on holiday in the Lake District McCartney proposed to Mills on 23 July 2001, giving her a £15,000 Former escort Denize Hewitt, then a friend, claims that Mills said she would give McCartney an ultimatum to marry her, and threatened to leave him if he refused.