McCartney wife eyes death threats, parallel with Diana
LONDON (AFP) — The estranged wife of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney hit out Wednesday at sensational attacks on her in the media, claiming she had received death threats and comparing herself to Princess Diana.
Heather Mills, who is in the midst of a divorce battle with the singer-songwriter, said the pressure had driven her close suicide and urged a boycott of tabloid newspapers.
Fighting back tears, the 39-year-old told GMTV: "They make up such lies. They've called me a whore, a golddigger, a fantasist, a liar, the most unbelievably hurtful things, and I've stayed quiet for my daughter.
"But my daughter... we've had death threats, I've been close to suicide. I'm so upset about this... I've had worse press than a paedophile or a murderer and I've done nothing but charity for 20 years."
Mills and McCartney, who have a four-year-old daughter, Beatrice, have been locked in divorce proceedings since last May, when they announced that their five-year marriage was over and that it was an amicable split.
But their dealings since then have been anything but friendly, particularly after private court documents detailing unflattering claims against McCartney appeared in newspapers.
Mills, a former model turned charity worker, denied she was behind the leak.
And amid claims she had been offered up to 60 million pounds as a settlement, she said she had been "offered nothing" in the divorce but was unable to discuss the case for legal reasons.
"How do you know if I even want any money? I'm 1.5 million pounds in debt in lawyers' fees, and that's as much as I can say or I go to jail, for telling the truth," she said.
"So I'm gagged at the moment because I'm not allowed to say a word while the media are fed this spin by a certain corner."
She also rubbished claims she wants a clause in her divorce settlement to allow her to sell her story.
Mills said she had suffered 18 months of abuse at the hands of the media, likening her treatment to that of princess Diana and Kate McCann, whose four-year-old daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May.
"I have a box of evidence that's going to a certain person should anything happen to me, so if you top me off it's still going to that person, and the truth will come out," she said.
Leaked documents which emerged after Diana's death in 1997 suggested that she at one point feared she might be killed. The inquest into her death in a Paris road tunnel is currently underway in London.
