Heather Mills

Who is Heather Mills?

Heather Anne Mills is an English charity campaigner and former model.

Mills came to public attention in 1993, when a collision with a police motorcycle in London resulted in the amputation of her left leg below the knee. She continued to model using a prosthetic limb and sold her story to a tabloid newspaper, using the proceeds to establish the Heather Mills Health Trust, which recycles used prosthetic limbs to amputees unable to afford new ones and campaigns to remove and ban land mines.

She came to further public attention in 2000 when it became public that she was in a relationship with the former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney. They married in June 2002 and Mills gave birth to Beatrice Milly McCartney on 28 October 2003. The couple separated in 2006 and finalised their highly publicised divorce in 2008.

After her marriage to McCartney, Mills became involved in animal rights advocacy and as of 2012 is a patron of Viva! and the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation. She is also vice-president of the Limbless Association and skied in the British disabled ski team's development squad for the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games, winning several Gold medals in the interim. She is currently ranked 28th in the world in slalom. Mills quit the British Disabled Ski Team on 19th December 2013 after a request by Sylvana Mestre, the head of the International Paralympic Committee, to revert to an approved ski boot design.