Background
Heather Mills was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, to John "Mark" Francis Mills (a former British paratrooper), and his wife, Beatrice Mary Mills, née Finlay, who was the daughter of a colonel in the British Army.
She was reconciled with her mother in 1989, but Beatrice died shortly after, during surgery for a minor thrombosis operation. Mills then worked at a casino, a sunbed salon, and the Bananas cocktail bar in London.
Career
Alfie Karmal was ten years older than Mills when they met in 1986, while she was working as a waitress at the Bananas cocktail club in Wardour Street, London. Karmal bought her new clothes, Cartier jewellery and paid for cosmetic surgery when she complained that her breasts were sagging. She later said that she had had a breast reduction operation, reducing her bra size from a 34E to a 34C.
She reached the final of the Cinzano Model of the Year Competition, so Karmal, who had moved into the computer industry, set up a model agency for her, ExSell Management,although it was not successful. Mills later tried to sell it for
£5,000 but could not find a buyer. In 1987, Mills went to live in Paris, telling Karmal that a cosmetics company had given her a modelling contract, but became the mistress of millionaire Lebanese businessman George Kazan for two
years and took part in a photo session for a stills-only German sex education manual called Die Freuden der Liebe (The Joys of Love), in which she was photographed explicitly simulating sex with an equally nude male model, Peter
Wilson. She received about £150 for the session. She also modelled for full-frontal nude photographs.
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 was announced that she was dating 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! (Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals) and the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation. She is also vice-president of the Limbless Association and skis in the British disabled ski team's development squad for the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games, winning several Gold medals in the interim.