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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you remember Heather Mills?

609 replies

LucilleBluth · 28/11/2021 18:52

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.

OP posts:
LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 14:53

He'd been doing that since the Jann Wenner 1970 interview, so I wouldn't be seeing that as a sign he was getting ready to be murdered. Also John had big plans for 1981, he was going to take Sean to Edinburgh, and sail the QE2 up the River Mersey, and was really looking forward to being in England again, and seeing Mimi, hardly the actions of someone expecting to be bumped off by his wife(even if as I think, they were heading for divorce)

Georgeskitchen · 07/12/2021 16:00

Strangely enough I was thinking about her last week!! When she first came to attention after the accident in which she lost her leg, the media heaped her with praise for showing people that losing a limb is not the end of the world. She was highly respected and always invited to speak on TV shows etc. She was portrayed as an inspiration.
Then she married Paul McCartney......the media turned on her in the most vile and disgusting way. It must have been awful for her. I wonder where she is now and how she is getting on x

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 16:08

Do you not think that all sounds a bit unlikely, @LoveMySituation? Like he was - you know - spinning a yarn.

John liked to say that Paul was the best PR man in the business, but really that was him. He was a genius at selling his own image.

LookslovelyinSpringtime · 07/12/2021 16:15

@LoveMySituation

He'd been doing that since the Jann Wenner 1970 interview, so I wouldn't be seeing that as a sign he was getting ready to be murdered. Also John had big plans for 1981, he was going to take Sean to Edinburgh, and sail the QE2 up the River Mersey, and was really looking forward to being in England again, and seeing Mimi, hardly the actions of someone expecting to be bumped off by his wife(even if as I think, they were heading for divorce)
Yes exactly.
EYProvider · 07/12/2021 16:27

@LookslovelyinSpringtime
@LoveMySituation

Could be!

LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 16:44

You can hear him talk about taking Sean to Edinburgh on his audio diary. It's on YouTube (he talks about other(sensitive) things too, I feel like I shouldn't be listening to it) so if it's a 'yarn' he's lying to himself

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 16:54

@LoveMySituation

Right, because clearly he never intended the audio tapes or the diaries to be heard by the public, even though his personal assistant had majored in journalism, was writing a book and he knew it.

LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 16:58

That Fred Seaman book was one of the first books I read, quite randomly. It wasn't written until John had died. And considering what he also says on the tape, he might not want that to be known about by the public

Alwayscheerful · 07/12/2021 17:03

@Georgeskitchen

Strangely enough I was thinking about her last week!! When she first came to attention after the accident in which she lost her leg, the media heaped her with praise for showing people that losing a limb is not the end of the world. She was highly respected and always invited to speak on TV shows etc. She was portrayed as an inspiration. Then she married Paul McCartney......the media turned on her in the most vile and disgusting way. It must have been awful for her. I wonder where she is now and how she is getting on x
Set to marry article.
Do you remember Heather Mills?
EYProvider · 07/12/2021 17:03

I don’t believe the official story, @LoveMySituation. Great if you do - who knows? You could be right!

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 17:12

You mean about wondering whether he should touch his mother’s breast, @LoveMySituation?

He was profoundly messed up, let’s face it. And I’m sure he had moments when he thought about Scotland or Liverpool or Paul, or whatever. (That’s what his diaries were about, according to everyone who read them.) And like most people who are seriously mentally ill, drug addled and anorexic, he was probably up and down.

But I don’t see the relevance. You’re saying that because he was thinking about Scotland, he couldn’t be thinking about killing himself? The first thing he says in that audio diary is that he has been thinking about throwing himself out of the window.

TomPinch · 07/12/2021 17:35

[quote julieca]@TomPinch yes there was joint custody. That simply means a sharing of parental responsibility, it does not dictate where the child lives. Beatrice was always going to live with Heather. Heather got what she did on the basis that Beatrice was going to be living with her. So yes a tight settlement. I would not have treated my own child that way.[/quote]
But once again you're confusing what McCartney was ordered to pay to Mills te his child's upbringing with what he would pay towards his child's upbringing on total. He was perfectly entitled to make his own separate arrangements direct to his child and I'm sure has. The court wasn't asked to rule on what they should be.

You seem to have the idea in your mind that when a marriage breaks up, the wife gets the children, the house, and the matrimonial assets while the husband lives in a box room while continuing to support them.

Your beef with McCartney really does seem to be based on the fact that he quite rightly got to retain his property that he earned instead of handing it to Mills because she deigned to propagate with him.

LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 17:46

He'd been feeling like that since his 'fat Elvis' in 1965, and 'Yer Blues' is pretty unmistakably about being suicidal. So it's hardly new. So why now/then? And you're saying Yoko had him killed with his knowledge, not that he killed himself, I'm saying he was not acting in a way that befits that. After being inspired by McCartney II(and I think 'Coming up' is basically Paul saying to John 'come and get me') he was in the studio for the first time in five years, and planning as I said before. For life

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 18:16

@Alwayscheerful
@Georgeskitchen

McCartney was treated like shit by the rock music press for 30 or 40 years - much, much worse than Heather Mills ever was. They’re still too cool to give him his dues, which is frankly absurd.

Heather Mills got called out for being the gold digger that she was. Paul got told the wrong Beatle died, that it should have been him. His kids had to deal with that for years.

What Heather Mills went through was nothing compared to what he went through, and I’m pretty sure the payoff more than compensated for any hurt pride on her part.

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 18:18

@LoveMySituation

Like I say, could be!

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 19:03

@LoveMySituation

But just to be clear, I think it was more likely a double suicide gone wrong.

LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 20:25

So you think Chapman was supposed to shoot Yoko but didn't? Why would Yoko want to die? The mind boggles. America is full of nutters with guns. Why's it so hard to believe that this one succeeded? After all someone else managed to stab George. Was Olivia behind that?

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 20:51

She didn’t want to die, @LoveMySituation. That’s where it went wrong obviously.

Let me rephrase what I wrote before. I think it was sold to John as a double suicide. And Sam Green obviously. But you’re forgetting that she was two timing Sam Green with Sam Havadtoy. My theory - the Sams were played off against each other.

Of course, you could be right and John might have been on top of the world, as he claimed to be. I do agree that Paul was sending a message with Coming Up, and I think John sent a message back with Starting Over. That had to be for Paul, right? But whether it was meant genuinely or whether it was a message sent to mess with his head forever - the ultimate act of one upmanship - is anyone’s guess.

LoveMySituation · 07/12/2021 21:34

I would imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle, Yoko's built a huge industry on their 'brand' and how happy they were, but only they know the truth. And the moving the boyfriend in the day after and her chucking his family out of homes he'd bought for them points to something.

Starting over is totally to Paul. I mean how many Wings puns can you fit in one song?! Paul knew it too. There's that story of him being in the studio after John had died listening to it over and over again for hours. Jealous guy is for him too. They were competative but ultimately they loved each other, and I don't think John was trying to get one over on Paul. 'no longer riding on the merry go round. I just had to let it go'

ArblemarchTFruitbat · 07/12/2021 21:41

Just catching up ...

EYProvider · 07/12/2021 23:52

Jealous Guy was absolutely written for Paul. Paul admitted it too in a Playgirl interview in 1985.

On one of the original demos for Starting Over, John actually references ‘the Walrus’, which settles the argument, even though the Elvis voice and the lyrics make it clear that the song is about Paul. I have no doubt that he had regrets and that he wished he could go backwards and undo the damage he’d caused. I just think he ultimately couldn’t.

LookslovelyinSpringtime · 07/12/2021 23:58

I just think this is absolute nonsense myself. No evidence for most of the assertions. It’s wild supposition and a mish mash of crank theories.

John has complex feelings about Paul, but Insont believe songs clearly written to Yoko were meant for Paul.
I think feelings about other people and issues could bleed over into songs with another theme at times. Why on earth would Jealous Guy be about Paul?

EYProvider · 08/12/2021 00:09

Because Paul said so, @LookslovelyinSpringtime. Directly and unambiguously.

And anyone who says that Starting Over is NOT about Paul, when the lyrics are ‘why don’t we spread our wings and fly, don’t let another day go by, my love’ doesn’t know the first thing about John Lennon.

EYProvider · 08/12/2021 00:11

Also, Jealous Guy was John’s apology for his hit piece, How Do You Sleep, which was on the same album. He was a very mercurial person.

LoveMySituation · 08/12/2021 00:27

The same way Oh Darling was written for John, Paul references crying 'when you told me you didn't need me anymore', when the Beatles were splitting up, John says 'I'm sorry I made you cry' John was jealous of Paul (and vice versa), and as said above, Paul told Playgirl it was for him.