hi! I love all your various meta about john and paul and I feel like you’re my go to when thinking about pauls psychology. So I was wondering what your thoughts are on the whole Heather Mills debacle? I think it was a very perilous time for paul ofc he was grieving, and while because of Mills reputation shes not exactly the most credible source yet i also find it uncomfortable to outright deny all her claims. Especially in a circumstance where thjngs were especially hard for paul and I don’t think (given his upbringing) it would be unreasonable for him to be violent under the influence of substances and his own heavy emotions. I really wanted to hear what your opinion and thoughts are on this
Wow thank you so much!! I mean I should be everyone's go to because no one understands him like me so clearly you're very smart and correct;) I agree with you. It feels wrong to be so dismissive of her as much of the fandom -- and frankly the world -- is, despite her tenuous credibility.
I actually hadn't looked into the whole Heather Mills thing much before this ask. I have now watched a few of her interviews and a mini doc on her, and read through the court proceedings. Here are my thoughts based on what little I know.
Heather's Accusations
Her claims are generally summed up in that Paul was neglectful and demanding. Do I believe that? 1000%. Those are things John and George complained about as well as some people like Danny Fields who were concerned about Linda in their marriage.
Heather said she was his "full time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner, and psychologist." I have no problem believing every word of that except "business partner." Paul wants all his partners to also be his mommy, and Heather is absolutely right to call him out on that. I also think there's another layer when the partner is a woman where Paul feels entitled to certain things. Like Paul would never have asked John or Robert or Donavon or whoever to put his career to the side to take care of him.
She said Paul was constantly drinking and smoking weed. I also find this very very believable. Paul, we know, uses those substances heavily to cope with pain he has no idea how to deal with in a healthy way. He likes to be in a doped up or lethargic or dissociative state rather than actually feeling or processing anything. Ringo always gets the alcoholic label and John gets the drug addiction label and while I think they both struggled the most with those things respectively, it doesn't mean the others had little to no problems. Paul shows clear signs of being drunk or out of it during get back. Linda described him as a drunk who wouldn't take a bath. We talk about Ringo being black out drunk at the age of nine -- and we should! But we should also talk about Jim teaching Paul and Mike how to get away with underage drinking at pubs and pouring out quadruple measures of undiluted liquor for everyone at parties where Paul and Mike were only supervised in passing by a lot of other drunken adults. We should also talk about the level of addiction it takes for a guy as career-driven and conscientious and careful as Paul to be in as much and as consistent trouble as he was in the 70s and into the 80s with weed. I know we don't take pot seriously like we do other drugs, but anything can be an addictive substance. A person can develop a chemical dependency on anything. The bronchial spasm that almost killed him in 73 didn't stop him. The fact that Paul was busted for pot at least once AFTER the terrifying Japan ordeal is very very telling to me. So yes. I have no doubt Heather is completely correct that during this intense grieving period for Linda Paul would've been using heavily. And Heather claims due to his drug use, Paul was unable to care for her following a surgery the way a spouse should, and he was unable to care for their daughter at times the way a father should. While I'm sure Paul had every intention of being the best support for his family he could be, and while I'm sure most of the time -- as Heather admits -- he was a very caring and dedicated husband and father, I have no doubt he failed a lot as well. Addiction will do that to anyone.
She said Paul got physically abusive while he was under the influence of alcohol. She recounts him grabbing her by the neck and choking her when she asked him if he'd been smoking marijuana, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her over a coffee table, shoving her into a bathtub, and throwing a broken wine glass at her. She also says he once fell down a hill and cut his arm.
When Paul's legal team said they would counter all her conduct allegations with their own conduct allegations in the financial settlement, she chose not to include hers.
Paul was the one who filed for the divorce citing unreasonable behavior on her part.
What we know about Paul and Violence
In the video clip where she playfully swats at him, his knee-jerk, instinctive response is the very opposzite of what a guy who habitually throws his wife around would do. He looks scared. He steps away from her into a protective position. Then, embarrassed, he quickly puts himself back in a normal attitude. But what you would expect from a guy who chokes this woman and throws things at her would be a reflexive offensive stance rather than defensive. You would expect a hand to fly up or a fist to clench or a step toward her with his weight aggressively forward, you know. At the very least, that guy laughs it off. Now, I am not saying this is definitive proof that he never hurt her. What I am saying is it does provide a glimpse into that dynamic between them and it is not cut and dry abuser/victim.
I also definitely think if Paul was capable of choking someone and throwing them over furniture and throwing things at them, especially when they did not behave violently toward him, he would have done that to Francie and she would've made an "I survived" chronicle out of it and never ever shut up about it. But of all the terrible things Francie catalogued Paul doing to her during their time together, she doesn't have one violent story. Paul did push her into a bathtub full of water while they were having sex, and that is included in the book, but nothing angry or violent.
On the other hand, Francie said Paul told her he hit Jane once and she was turned on by it and he was baffled. So there is an account of him hitting his romantic partner, but he was clearly more upset by it than she was. Francie herself has admitted to struggling with mental health issues and she was certainly trying to write the most attention-grabbing exposé she could. So even that story might not be true. But it could be. Paul and Jane definitely fought a lot and Paul was experimenting with all kinds of drugs during their relationship. There is also Paul's own quote about being disgusted with himself over how naturally it came to him to punish Martha physically. So we know he has that side to him, no matter how much he hates it.
There is also the fact that in every account of Stu attacking Paul on stage, Paul never even took a swing at him to defend himself. George and Stu had lots of fist fights according to George himself. Pauline Sutcliffe said John beat Stu bloody and Paul "could do nothing" to stop him, just stood there and watched it happen and helped Stu home. In that story where the boys are jumped, John, Stu, and Pete all join the fight and Paul is just dancing around dodging swings. When they were touring with another new act, John picked a fight and Paul took the hit for him and then calmed the guy down. When Paul finally got his dad to stop hitting him, he says he "just stood there" (presumably rather than the dodging or cowering he would normally do) and calmly dared Jim to "do it again." All this to say Paul's response in the face of violence seems not to be to come back with more violence himself. In the options of "fight, flight, freeze, or fawn," Paul seems to go in the opposite order, especially when it comes to actual physical violence.
But that's not to say he isn't capable of violence, that certain situations might pull it out of him. Remember, I'll say this as many times as I need to, it wasn't Jim smacking Paul in an occasional argument. That was Mary. Mary, who, by all accounts, Paul idolized, would smack Paul and Mike "when the need arose" whatever that means. Jim was the scary one she would threaten with, and he stayed scary at least until Paul was in his late teens. That kind of thing leaves deep interior scars. I would not be surprised if for Paul that means freezing up in the face of violence or conflict 90% of the time and then there's still that 10% where one of the other responses is triggered. There's a reason trauma is generational. Sometimes people are able to swing that pendulum. Sometimes people are stuck. Sometimes it's somewhere in between. I grew up in a violent home not half as bad as Paul's and I have had to work really hard in therapy. As far as we know, by the time Paul met Heather, he'd been to a little therapy after Linda's death, but most likely it was nowhere near enough. Who knows if they even touched on Jim's violence, there would've been plenty else to cover.
I'm so sorry I don't have a conclusive take for you on this. What I will say is my theory is there's got to be at least some truth to what she's saying. I bet she's exaggerating and not showing her own poor conduct BUT it is definitely within the realm of possibilities that every word is true.
Heather's Credibility
People point to the fact that Paul's kids hated her as evidence that she must be bad. I think you would just hate her no matter what if you were his kid. Your beloved mother dies of cancer and a year later your dad is hooking up with a pornstar who is your age? You'd hate her. The correct response would be to hate your dad, but you love your dad and it's the 2000s, so you can't hate him. You put all that hate on the new woman.
Lots of her stories have been supposedly debunked, the clearest example being the kidnapping story. She said she and her childhood best friend were imprisoned in their swim teacher's basement for three days before cops broke down the door and rescued them. The best friend says they were sexually abused by this man, but never imprisoned. My hangup there is: why say someone else was there at all if you know it's a lie that person will turn around and deny? I think Heather must genuinely have believed that happened. Memory is a crazy thing. There are things my sister swears by that I have not the foggiest recollection of. You'd think the friend would remember something like that but it's possible she blocked it out. Then again, there should be a police record of the event that Heather could get her hands on and prove her story with, right?
The court documents say she claims her pre-Paul home was worth 500k but it shows she sold it for 325k. She said she made way -- like astronomically -- more money than her tax documents show. She said she was up for a peerage for her charity work by a Lord McDonald. All Lord McDonalds denied this claim.
The judge did find her claims and evidence "inconsistent" and "less than impressive" etc. but he also said Paul's statement that Heather liked attention was "telling". The judge's whole opinion is clearly filtered through a lens of misogyny. He sounds like a Beatle Bro talking about the Paul v John divorce.
Heather's Personality
Attachment theory says you will always be drawn to relationships with people the same level of disorganized as you and/or you will create that level of disorganization in your relationships. That is to say Paul attracts crazy people and/or being in a relationship with Paul will make a person crazy because he is insane levels of unhealthy.
If you watch her interviews when she's upset it is jarring, unnerving, downright scary how much she sounds like John when he's upset. 2007 Heather is 1971 John I'm not even kidding.
She gets accused of being a scheming, conniving, gold digger. She totally is. And you know what? So is Paul! And the only time Paul gets flack for it is when he's compared to the other Beatles because he's been made the girl of the group. With Heather it's made out to be her whole personality all the time, even in court, because she's a woman.
She was married before Paul and engaged twice. She broke off one of the engagements the night she met Paul. Linda was married before Paul. Paul was engaged while dating three-four other women and at least two men.
Heather and Paul are both ambitious little whores and I love them both for it. Poor B probably has more personality disorder than water in their blood.
She comes off as very very emotional and erratic. She threw her engagement ring out the window the night before the wedding. She dumped a pitcher of water over Paul's lawyer's head. She bugged Paul's phone and leaked his conversations after the split. All very John Lennon things to do.
Paul says in court she is a very good mother and he's very willing to split custody with her. We know Paul has inhumanely high standards for mothers. That is high praise indeed.
She looks hot as fuck in her court suit and she speaks confidently and determinedly to reporters who absolutely hate her after being treated like a crazy person and gaslit in a courtroom that is supposed to protect her rights.
Rather than back down or try to hide in the face of almost universal hatred, she keeps fighting for what she believes is right. She has this initiative to force honesty from the press and she's gathering public support for it. She goes on dancing with the stars and performs beautiful athletic dances. She skis.
She continues to bitch about Paul for years and years. Also very John coded.
She has genuinely dedicated so much of her life to charity and activism and she deserves to be praised for that.
Heather's Hardships
She had a very very tough childhood and she's an amputee with a broken pelvis. If that's not enough, she had to be married to Paul -- a hardship at any time in his life no question -- right after Linda. If that's not enough, she says she got worse treatment in the press than a pedophile or a murderer and she is absolutely correct. I found it extremely chilling when Geoff Baker said the public needed to show "this woman" that they will not be moved by her accusations of domestic violence. As well as the police minimizing her fear. The woman has a very very young child and she's receiving death threats and when she calls the cops too much they tell her she's being dramatic and crying wolf.
Bibliography
(October 18, 2006)– Paul McCartney has broken his silence and issued a statement regarding domestic abuse allegations made against him
The court files I read are publicly available. Let me know if you want them.
