Do you remember Heather Mills?

[LucilleBluth]

I have been watching the Beatles documentary and got to thinking about her.

She was in the papers constantly in the 2000s, I remember her being painted as an absolute con artist witch. I googled a few articles about her from the time of the divorce. They are brutal in the misogynistic tone, she’s labelled as a slag, a goer, ex prostitute, you name it.

I don’t think papers write about women in such hash terms anymore. Maybe she was a bit of a twat, whoever married Saint Paul would have suffered at that time I think.

I suppose by AIBU is are the press less misogynistic.

@Sparklingbrook dont be disingenous. I am talking about when Beatrice was a child. She has only just turned 18.

[quote julieca]@Sparklingbrook dont be disingenous. I am talking about when Beatrice was a child. She has only just turned 18.[/quote]
I am not. She could have bought a very nice terraced house in London when Beatrice was a child with the settlement she got.

I was replying to your previous comment ridiculing the idea of money as Beatrice is now an adult.
Yes they could have bought that house. Then needed money for maintenance and bills, not cheap in such a big house. And living costs, clothes, out of school activities and holidays.
In reality, she and Beatrice lived in a £3.9 million house. More realistic on a 24 million settlement.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/style/heather-mills-sells-uk-mansion-250751/

Only a 3.9 million pound house. That must have been very stressful for Beatrice I'm sure. And poor Heather only having 20 million left over for everything else. How very hard that must have been.

Of course, they could manage with that. The point is Paul could have been far more generous to his daughter and not affected his own income. The settlement was 0.25% of Pauls wealth. Nothing.

@julieca

Of course, they could manage with that. The point is Paul could have been far more generous to his daughter and not affected his own income. The settlement was 0.25% of Pauls wealth. Nothing.

I think it was just fine. And unless you know the private details of PM's finances you have no idea of any funds that went directly to his daughter in terms of investments for her future, or what money he spent on her as a child that didn't go through HM at all. You have no clue how generous he was to his daughter if you are just basing it on what HM got in the divorce settlement.

@Sparklingbrook I know what the settlement was. And maintenance of £35,000 a year until she was 17, school fees and salary of a nanny.
He is tight, he didn't want to give any more than he was forced to.
This isn't about her future. He may have made provisions or not made any. This is about her childhood. He was determined to pay as little as possible towards that.
Anyway going to give up now. For some reason, you are determined to defend a billionaire giving as little money as he could to his ex-wife and child. He could have given four times the amount he did and it would still only have been 1% of his overall wealth.
And Paul himself owns a number of houses.

Anyway going to give up now

Good plan.

@julieca

Of course, they could manage with that. The point is Paul could have been far more generous to his daughter and not affected his own income. The settlement was 0.25% of Pauls wealth. Nothing.

Again. He. Had. Joint. Custody.

You're relying on a very old-fashioned idea that the child should be treated as a golden goose laying golden eggs exclusively for Mills, who was responsible for generating 0.0% of McCartney's wealth.

And that all funding of their daughters upbringing must go through Mills.

Can you not see how messed up this is? It's not McCartneys job to keep his ex-wife in clover. They divorced.

From the judgment:

In my judgment the wife's attitude in her Form E, her open offers, her oral and written evidence, and her submissions is that she is entitled for the indefinite future, if not for the whole of her life, to live at the same "rate" as the husband and to be kept in the style to which she perceives she was accustomed during the marriage. Although she strongly denied it her case boils down to the syndrome of "me, too" or "if he has it, I want it too". I shall say more about this when I consider what are the wife's needs.

It must have been absolutely plain to the wife after separation that it was wholly unrealistic to expect to go on living at the rate at which she perceived she was living.

The wife points to the husband's vast wealth including a very diverse portfolio of valuable properties, and to his expenditure in 2005, set out in the husband's Form E. I shall return to that when I consider needs. But none of this, in my judgment, in the circumstances of this case can found a reasonable expectation that the lifestyle the wife perceived she enjoyed during the marriage could or should continue after its breakdown in April 2006.

Tl/dr. I should get to bathe in Dom Perignon every day because you're rich and I was married to you for a bit.

In fairness, compared to the judgments made today against high net worth individuals, this settlement wasn’t even slightly generous. Has the law changed since 2006 or did he just have an excellent team of lawyers.

I think you've got to be careful to compare like with like. Imagine if they'd met 40 years before and McCartney made all the money while Mills kept house. She might have got half on the basis that she'd sacrificed her career for his extremely lucrative one. A lot of HWI cases will be like that.

But in this case Mills was basically wanting (and in fact got) a chunk of what McCartney made before he ever met her. The reason for that was lifestyle during the marriage. If they'd lived it up more, she'd have got more. For all I know McCartney was rich in assets more than income and perhaps preferred to reinvest his income rather than blow it on whatever Mills wanted.

Sorry, I think I expressed myself badly. I'll try again. If McCartney had made his money with the Beatles while he was married to Mills I'd expect something closer to a 50/50 split.

Mills got much less because none of Macca's wealth was fruits of their relationship iyswim, and she'd not sacrificed her career so he could make it.

@TomPinch

From the judgment:

In my judgment the wife's attitude in her Form E, her open offers, her oral and written evidence, and her submissions is that she is entitled for the indefinite future, if not for the whole of her life, to live at the same "rate" as the husband and to be kept in the style to which she perceives she was accustomed during the marriage. Although she strongly denied it her case boils down to the syndrome of "me, too" or "if he has it, I want it too". I shall say more about this when I consider what are the wife's needs.

It must have been absolutely plain to the wife after separation that it was wholly unrealistic to expect to go on living at the rate at which she perceived she was living.

The wife points to the husband's vast wealth including a very diverse portfolio of valuable properties, and to his expenditure in 2005, set out in the husband's Form E. I shall return to that when I consider needs. But none of this, in my judgment, in the circumstances of this case can found a reasonable expectation that the lifestyle the wife perceived she enjoyed during the marriage could or should continue after its breakdown in April 2006.

Tl/dr. I should get to bathe in Dom Perignon every day because you're rich and I was married to you for a bit.

Bravo 👏🏻

The settlement was absolutely right for a few years of marriage, with HM not being with him while he built his fortune and giving up work etc etc.

The money received was ample to bring up their daughter.

On the money thing, didn’t Paul and Linda have a particular ethos about not ‘splashing cash’ on their DC, eg sending them to state school?

maintenance etc of ‘only’ £Xm seems v reasonable IMO!

@TomPinch

Sorry, I think I expressed myself badly. I'll try again. If McCartney had made his money with the Beatles while he was married to Mills I'd expect something closer to a 50/50 split.

Mills got much less because none of Macca's wealth was fruits of their relationship iyswim, and she'd not sacrificed her career so he could make it.

Exactly.

Can somebody please explain why people keep posting about trips in a westerly direction?

I remember Heather Mills. I remember what was confirmed in their divorce hearing too, which was in the public domain. She continued to bill his office for substantial monthly mortgage repayments on a house he had already paid off for her; she claimed to be a millionaire in her own right but she was in reality skint; she claimed to have donated all her money to charity and in reality there was no evidence to back this up whatsoever. It is OK to call someone a deceitful character, even if she is a woman and has a disability.

@chiefcha

Can somebody please explain why people keep posting about trips in a westerly direction?

I’ve no idea. It all went off on a very weird tangent about John Lennon’s death and conspiracy theories I think a tinfoil hat might be required.

@Dozer

On the money thing, didn’t Paul and Linda have a particular ethos about not ‘splashing cash’ on their DC, eg sending them to state school?

maintenance etc of ‘only’ £Xm seems v reasonable IMO!

Beatrice was sent to a posh private nursery while Heather and Paul were togethér. It may have been more Linda who wanted state schools, because Paul seems to have no issue with splashing the cash on hilself. Really you think £35k annual maintenance is fair for a billionaire!

Joint custody means joint responsibility for the child legally, it has NOTHING to do with residence.
Beatrice lived with Heather and that seems to have always been the plan.

Re the Westerly voyage I think it is because most trips are East to West so you are going against currents and weather conditions. I don’t know the significance of it.

@Malibuismysecrethome

Re the Westerly voyage I think it is because most trips are East to West so you are going against currents and weather conditions. I don’t know the significance of it.

Something to do with Satan and witchcraft apparently.

@Malibuismysecrethome

It has some kind of occult significance - I’m not sure what.

@Sparklingbrook

It wasn’t me who took the westerly trip; I’m just pointing out the significance of both John and Chapman doing it at the same time. You don’t have to read my comments, you know, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sneer so openly at them either.

You’ve pointed out that it has nothing to do with Heather Mills and instructed me to start another thread, even though plenty of other people have expressed interest. Do you work for Mumsnet?

And it isn’t ‘tinfoil hat stuff’ unless you want to turn it into that.

It’s a series of events that don’t add up.