Heather Mills McCartney has adopted the opposite public relations strategy to her husband — talking openly about the breakdown of their marriage, rather than maintaining stony silence.
The former model spoke out in a two-part television interview in America in which she said that she had been “madly in love” with Sir Paul and vowed never to marry again.
“I would rather someone come up and chop off all my limbs than go through what I went through,” she told Extra.
“If your limbs are chopped off you . . . get another limb and there’s light at the end of the tunnel. When you’re vilified for doing nothing but falling in love with an icon . . . I’d rather have all of my limbs cut off, that’s the God’s honest truth.”
Lady McCartney gave the interview during a business trip to the US to explore the creation of a vegan fast-food chain.
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She said that she had kept quiet despite the “rubbish” that had been written about her since her marriage collapsed.
“I just thought everybody would blame me,” she said. “So I sort of had my head down and people would come up and go, ‘How are you?’ People want to come up and give me a hug.”
She dismissed suggestions that she married Sir Paul for his money. He has an estimated £825 million fortune.
She said: “I was just madly in love, blinded by love. I’m a good mother, I’m a good person. I fell in love for the right reasons. I loved unconditionally, and it just didn’t work out.”
She added: “If I was a gold-digger, I would have a lot of money in my bank account. And why would I do 90 per cent of my work for charity? I would have took all the huge contracts I’ve been offered over the years. I’d be worth millions and millions, which I’m not.”
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She said that giving birth to her three-year-old daughter, Beatrice, was her “greatest accomplishment”. She said: “I tried for a long, long time — two ectopic pregnancies and six miscarriages. They told me I could never have children.”
She also denied reports that she was having an affair with her personal trainer, Ben Amigoni, 22.
She complained that she could not go out with her daughter because she is constantly pursued by paparazzi.
Her publicist, Phil Hall, the former Editor of News of the World, said that she agreed to give the interview to discuss her vegan diet and new fitness regime, not the divorce.
But Max Clifford, the public relations expert, said that he suspected that the decision to mount an offensive in the US rather than in Britain reflected her lack of popularity here.