And so the Heather Mills Anger Circus trundles ever on, reaching yet-another pseudo-conclusion outside court today, with the perpetually-outspoken Ms. Mills (appearing somewhat appropriately as a fashion-conscious power-dressing clown) declaring her intention to appeal not the generous award of £24.3 million with which she will walk away from her four-year marriage to Paul McCartney, but rather the publication of the full ruling, claiming she is doing so due to security concerns for her daughter. Call me cynical, but considering that dear old Mucca was originally angling for £125 million of Thumbsaloft’s widely-overestimated £800 million pound fortune (the real figure according the court is closer to £400 million, which more than explains his widely rumoured stinginess…), I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that she is ‘very, very happy’ with the decision to award her only a fifth of what she believed she was rightly due. And beyond this, considering that one of the reasons cited for the 2002 Mills-McCartney marriage split was media intrusion into their private lives, it smacks as a tiny bit hypocritical that Heather so lengthily lapped up the media scrum as she left court earlier today.
Try as I might, there’s something about Heather Mills that makes me completely unable to feel in the slightest bit sorry for her. I can happily accept that Paul McCartney was not a particularly wonderful husband, and that the continual media intrusion into their marriage may have contributed to their split. But even with these facts in mind, it is almost impossible for me to view her as a sympathetic character. The much-viewed and talked about GMTV interview, which I am convinced Ms. Mills believed would drum up enormous amounts of sympathy for her and her obscenely rewarding divorce settlement, made her look exhausted, yes; fed up, certainly; but a victim? Not on your nelly. The problem with Heather-as-victim is that she’s too gutsy for the role she seems determined to cut out for herself. We know that she’s done tonnes of work for ‘charidee’ for the last ‘twennyeer’, and we know that the media would have us believe that she is a wicked, grasping old witch trying to wring the last pennies out of good old ex-Beatle-national-treasure Paul McCartney, but for the love of god, woman, give it a rest! Do not rattle on about the enormous amount of charity work you do, and then go on to complain that the £35,000 a year your divorce settlement grants for your daughter’s upkeep means that she will no longer be able to fly first class. Be annoyed by all means that you might not have got as much dosh as you wanted, but crikey Heather, don’t be such a hypocrite!
We all know the uncomfortable duality of womanhood in the media – you can be a virgin or a whore, a bitch or a victim. That’s just how it works. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s how it is. And unfortunately for Heather, you can’t be both. You can’t spend twenty years acting the all-action heroine, the model doing charity work in the face of her own personal tragedy, raising awareness for landmines, for animal welfare and for disability to then turn around and cry in the face of the big bad media for depicting you as an evil, money-grabbing whore. What on earth did the woman expect? The UK media have a certain fondness for the aging rocker and a perverse fascination with the kiss-and-tell gold-digger – just look at the rose-tinted way tree-bothering Keith Richards is portrayed in the press in comparison to the way Pete Doherty (disgusting and shiny though he is) is demonised. Or the way the papers saw to it the spud-faced trollop who shagged Ashley Cole despite his vomiting all over her at the terrifying prospect was financially rewarded for ruining his marriage, only to guiltily wring their hands at poor Cheryl’s resultant plight. The media is a cruel mistress, and it is courted at your peril.
No one is going to believe Heather Mills when she claims that she is happy about the decision to award her a meagre £24.3 million, why would they? She spent eighteen months building up a portfolio against the media, the press, the paparazzi who hound her, her neighbours and the dog they accused her of killing, but she seemed to overlook one thing – she wasn’t in court against them – she was in court against mean old McCartney, all deep pockets, short arms and rigor-mortised thumbs. If they lie about you, Heather, expose the lies, but do not go into histrionics on breakfast television; it is unseemly, and it gives those that are more than happy to present you as a raving, lying lunatic only more ammunition. Where has all the class and dignity gone? The Heather we saw in between the bit where you got your knockers out and the bit where you went a bit Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? If you really are happy with how things turned out in court, then have the balls to let go of it all. Go back to your daughter, and your charity work, and move on with your life. Start making good use of the money your apparently joyless marriage earned you, and enjoying the comfortable lifestyle you now have the luxury of.
The gagging order on the personal trivialities of the case will see to it that the press will never stop Heather being presented as the woman who tried to gold-dig a Beatle out of his hard-earned fortune and lost, the woman who advocated drinking rats’ milk (though the quote was taken ludicrously out of context), the liar, the mad fantasist who bit off more than she could chew, overly-confident in her own abilities. Not, that is, until she makes a turn-around. Come on H, change from a bitch to a real victim – chuck out your ring-binders and marry a young slip of a thing, who in four years’ time will divorce you, blaming press intrusion and fleece you to the tune of £1.5 million (which translates, roughly, to about the same proportion of Paul’s money she will soon be enjoying). Or, more appealing, just go back to being a gutsy bitch. No more raving, no more tears. Not even you can put a positive spin on what has been the most unnecessarily drawn-out, speculated-about and rumour-mongering divorce of recent years, so stop trying. You’re the villain in this soap opera, so maybe it’s time you switched channels.
Crikey, I got through all of that and didn’t make a single shitty Beatles pun… I won’t even try to squeeze one in – I’ll just Let It Be… oh bugger.
Try as I might, there’s something about Heather Mills that makes me completely unable to feel in the slightest bit sorry for her. I can happily accept that Paul McCartney was not a particularly wonderful husband, and that the continual media intrusion into their marriage may have contributed to their split. But even with these facts in mind, it is almost impossible for me to view her as a sympathetic character. The much-viewed and talked about GMTV interview, which I am convinced Ms. Mills believed would drum up enormous amounts of sympathy for her and her obscenely rewarding divorce settlement, made her look exhausted, yes; fed up, certainly; but a victim? Not on your nelly. The problem with Heather-as-victim is that she’s too gutsy for the role she seems determined to cut out for herself. We know that she’s done tonnes of work for ‘charidee’ for the last ‘twennyeer’, and we know that the media would have us believe that she is a wicked, grasping old witch trying to wring the last pennies out of good old ex-Beatle-national-treasure Paul McCartney, but for the love of god, woman, give it a rest! Do not rattle on about the enormous amount of charity work you do, and then go on to complain that the £35,000 a year your divorce settlement grants for your daughter’s upkeep means that she will no longer be able to fly first class. Be annoyed by all means that you might not have got as much dosh as you wanted, but crikey Heather, don’t be such a hypocrite!
We all know the uncomfortable duality of womanhood in the media – you can be a virgin or a whore, a bitch or a victim. That’s just how it works. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s how it is. And unfortunately for Heather, you can’t be both. You can’t spend twenty years acting the all-action heroine, the model doing charity work in the face of her own personal tragedy, raising awareness for landmines, for animal welfare and for disability to then turn around and cry in the face of the big bad media for depicting you as an evil, money-grabbing whore. What on earth did the woman expect? The UK media have a certain fondness for the aging rocker and a perverse fascination with the kiss-and-tell gold-digger – just look at the rose-tinted way tree-bothering Keith Richards is portrayed in the press in comparison to the way Pete Doherty (disgusting and shiny though he is) is demonised. Or the way the papers saw to it the spud-faced trollop who shagged Ashley Cole despite his vomiting all over her at the terrifying prospect was financially rewarded for ruining his marriage, only to guiltily wring their hands at poor Cheryl’s resultant plight. The media is a cruel mistress, and it is courted at your peril.
No one is going to believe Heather Mills when she claims that she is happy about the decision to award her a meagre £24.3 million, why would they? She spent eighteen months building up a portfolio against the media, the press, the paparazzi who hound her, her neighbours and the dog they accused her of killing, but she seemed to overlook one thing – she wasn’t in court against them – she was in court against mean old McCartney, all deep pockets, short arms and rigor-mortised thumbs. If they lie about you, Heather, expose the lies, but do not go into histrionics on breakfast television; it is unseemly, and it gives those that are more than happy to present you as a raving, lying lunatic only more ammunition. Where has all the class and dignity gone? The Heather we saw in between the bit where you got your knockers out and the bit where you went a bit Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? If you really are happy with how things turned out in court, then have the balls to let go of it all. Go back to your daughter, and your charity work, and move on with your life. Start making good use of the money your apparently joyless marriage earned you, and enjoying the comfortable lifestyle you now have the luxury of.
The gagging order on the personal trivialities of the case will see to it that the press will never stop Heather being presented as the woman who tried to gold-dig a Beatle out of his hard-earned fortune and lost, the woman who advocated drinking rats’ milk (though the quote was taken ludicrously out of context), the liar, the mad fantasist who bit off more than she could chew, overly-confident in her own abilities. Not, that is, until she makes a turn-around. Come on H, change from a bitch to a real victim – chuck out your ring-binders and marry a young slip of a thing, who in four years’ time will divorce you, blaming press intrusion and fleece you to the tune of £1.5 million (which translates, roughly, to about the same proportion of Paul’s money she will soon be enjoying). Or, more appealing, just go back to being a gutsy bitch. No more raving, no more tears. Not even you can put a positive spin on what has been the most unnecessarily drawn-out, speculated-about and rumour-mongering divorce of recent years, so stop trying. You’re the villain in this soap opera, so maybe it’s time you switched channels.
Crikey, I got through all of that and didn’t make a single shitty Beatles pun… I won’t even try to squeeze one in – I’ll just Let It Be… oh bugger.
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