Heather Mills

Heather Anne Mills (born 12 January 1968) is an English former model, businesswoman, and animal rights activist. She first came to public attention in 1993 while working as a model, when she was struck by a police motorcycle in London. The accident led to the amputation of her left leg below the knee, but she continued her modelling career using a prosthetic limb. By late 1999, she entered a relationship with Paul McCartney. The couple married in June 2002 and had a daughter the following year. They separated in 2006 and finalized their divorce in 2008.

Mills was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, to John 'Mark' Francis Mills, a former British paratrooper, and Beatrice Mary (née Finlay) Mills. Her family lived in various locations during her youth, including Libanus, Alnwick, Washington, and Rothbury. After her mother left when Mills was nine years old, she was raised alongside her siblings by her father. Later, after her father was convicted of fraud and jailed, she moved to south London to live with her mother and her mother's partner. She attended Usworth Grange Primary School, Usworth Comprehensive School, and Hydeburn Comprehensive, leaving school in 1984.

Mills worked various jobs, including in a croissant shop, before pursuing modelling. In 1986, she met Alfie Karmal, who established a modelling agency named ExSell Management for her. She lived in Paris for two years before returning to London, later marrying Karmal in May 1989; the couple divorced in 1991. Around the start of the Croatian War, Mills established a refugee crisis centre in London that helped over 20 people escape the conflict. She personally drove donations to Croatia and accepted modelling jobs in Austria to finance the trips.

On 8 August 1993, while crossing Kensington Road in London with her then-fiancé Raffaele Mincione, Mills was hit by a police motorcycle. She suffered crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and lost her lower left leg. Following the accident, she used her media interview earnings to establish the Heather Mills Health Trust, which provided prosthetic limbs to landmine survivors between 2000 and 2004. She also organized the collection of thousands of discarded prosthetic limbs, coordinating with Brixton prison inmates to dismantle and pack them for shipment to amputees in Croatia. In 1995, she published an autobiography titled Out on a Limb and directed its proceeds to Adopt-A-Minefield.

Mills continued her philanthropic and campaigning work, helping develop the Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis for amputees in the United States and serving as a Goodwill Ambassador for Adopt-A-Minefield. She received recognition for her efforts, including an award from Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Račan in 2001, an honorary doctorate from the Open University in 2003, a Children in Need award in Düsseldorf in 2004, and the UC Irvine Human Security Award in 2004. As of 2024, Mills is a patron of Viva! and Viva! Health, as well as the vice-president of the Limbless Association.