Questions you'd ask Paul if you could interview him | Page 32 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Holloway said

I have a theory that Heather Mills was an abuser. It’s based on a few things:

• Reports from Paul’s friends that when he got with her, they couldn’t reach him except at work or in the studio because she intercepted any communication to his home. 

• Reports that she intercepted communication from his adult kids, like supposedly telling Heather her mental illness was too wearing on Paul and not to contact him and recording Stella’s phone calls. Supported in a later interview with James, who didn’t go into specifics but said he did have little contact with his dad and was estranged during his marriage to Mills. 

• Reports that Mills cleaned house of several of Paul’s longtime employees. Isolating him from friends, family and longtime employees is worrisome, because abusers often work on isolating a person from their support system. 

• When they first separated, there was gossip that some of their household staff was ready to come forward with accounts of Mills being physically abusive to Paul. That gossip was hushed up right quick, I suspect by Paul.

• Mills publicly acting out violently when she doesn’t get her way. Examples: throwing water on Paul’s lawyer in court, or attacking the Paralympic official who disqualified her. If she can’t control herself in situations where her image depends on it, how bad is she in private?
• Accounts from people who knew them during their marriage who said Mills would often berate and belittle Paul in front of other people, and he would just take it. 

Hmm. Sensitive issues here. That she is a very toxic person seems clear, if for no other reason that apparently nobody except her sister can endure a relationship with her (romantic or platonic) for any length of time (which makes me frightened for little Bea, frankly).

Before jumping into the fray, I want to insert a caveat about domestic violence, which society continually fails to take seriously enough. Accusations by victims are dismissed with awful regularity, and often purely on the basis of “but s/he’s such a nice person, it can’t be true!” That was the predominant knee-jerk reaction after Mills’ accusations hit the fan; it rankled me then and it rankles me now. That attitude ignores the reality of abuse, which is that abusers are often very, very good at fooling outsiders.

That said, based on the actual evidence we have, do I think it at all likely that Mills’ accusations were the unvarnished truth? Not really, major reasons being A) she has lied before, specifically about being a victim of abuse (such as in her “kidnapped by a pedophile” story, which ***actually happened to her friend, not to her***), and B) Paul has such good relationships with his kids, which would be highly, highly unlikely if he had abused their mother. However, is it possible, if unlikely, that a man as rich and powerful as Paul McCartney could get away with being secretly abusive? Maybe.

All that said, I agree that Mills’ observed behavior fits the abuser profile more than Paul’s does, and further seems very strange for an abuse victim (though there’s no real “profile” for victims; there are some behavioral patterns, but there is no “right” or “wrong” way to respond to abuse). Just one example: it was she who deliberately violated his boundaries by trying to break into his house, after they’d separated and he’d changed the locks. As Holloway said, her verbal viciousness is well-documented, as is her track record of gettin’ physical when angered. (I still can’t quite wrap my head around her dumping a pitcher of water over Paul’s lawyer’s head… in the courtroom. That is just… wow.) Also, and this is RANK speculation, but I sure got a sinking feeling in my stomach when her claims of him cutting her arm with a broken glass came right on the heels of her allegation that Paul was such a wino that he had to get stitches in his arm after “falling on a stick” (???) while taking a drunken ramble ’round the farm. That’s a pretty creepy coincidence to me.

Then again, I can easily believe Paul can be most unpleasant when mad and/or drunk, and Mills’ stories may indeed contain grains of truth. He is no shrinking violet, and I don’t think he ever would have tolerated abusive behavior in a mate if he hadn’t been in such bad shape after Linda died. Still having crying jags every day, 18 months after losing a spouse, goes beyond normal grief, or even normal depression — he was terribly vulnerable when they met. After a while, he may have had second thoughts, but by then it probably would have been a blow to his pride to admit he’d been wrong and get the “I told you so” treatment from everybody and their dog.

In the end, however, Heather Mills is still a human being. She had a horrendous upbringing, and while that isn’t an “excuse,” it should be taken into account (just like so many people fall over themselves to do re: John). Much of the mindless savaging she took from the press was absolutely cruel and unnecessary. Last but not least: her disability is entirely irrelevant and “jokes” mocking it are, to me, incredibly offensive.

***See correction in post below***

Holloway said

Most people who are trying to pull one over or con someone are also smart enough to avoid situations where they might be revealed. A smart con artist would’ve taken Paul’s initial offer and never gone to court. But Mills was so brazen she didn’t seem phased at all whenever caught out.

Isn’t that a diagnostic feature of compulsive lying — telling lies even when they work against your interests? The identity theft and the kidnapping story are good examples of that. She even wrote about the latter in her book, which was spectacularly stupid. (After some googling I found my initial memory was inaccurate: Mills claimed both she and the friend were kidnapped for three days. The friend said she was molested by the man but never kidnapped, and hated having her identity revealed in connection to the incident. She sued Mills, quite rightly, and won a settlement.)

Even Mills’ publicist quit on her and threatened to sue her for continually lying to the press; eventually her divorce attorneys quit, too (and this despite being guaranteed a fat payout, whatever happened).

I don’t know; is it possible for someone to be so disturbed that they begin to actually believe their own lies and projections onto others? Some combination of compulsive lying and a delusional disorder?