The hounding of Heather: Greedy. Gold-digger. A nag. All lies, say her closest friends

Vicious abuse has been hurled at Sir Paul McCartney's wife since their split became public. David Randall discovers another side to the story

This weekend, Heather Mills McCartney should have been preparing for the kind of week she enjoys most: bouncing from party to party, TV studio to TV studio, with Paul by her side, and all to promote the launch on Thursday of her new book. Instead, she is back in a wheelchair, at an undisclosed location, feeling "very low" and still reeling from not just the break-up of her marriage, but also the kind of press coverage normally meted out to serial killers.

She may still be Lady McCartney but she could hardly have attracted more hostility this past week if her name were Lady Macbeth. The coverage that followed the announcement of her split from one of the most famous and revered men on the planet painted her variously as a nag, wicked step-mother, foul-tempered harridan, exploiter of her partner's fame, fomenter of rows and gold-digger. No one actually accused her of supplying him with a dagger and urging him to murder a house guest, but at times it was a close-run thing.

But whatever happened inside the marriage (and only two people know that), little in the couple's eventful lives could ever have prepared them for the torrid press coverage of their split. It was nothing short of The Hounding of Heather, and yet, in investigating it, The Independent on Sunday has discovered another side to this woman. Colleagues, friends and associates have come forward to tell of a secret Heather, one very different from her public image. And unlike the anonymous "friends" quoted in the stories on the couple's split, they are prepared to go on the record.

What has moved them to come forward was the trauma for Heather and Paul that broke surface three weeks ago with a story in the News of the World about the couple living apart. There then followed 15 days of denials, plus various "friends" chipping in their twopenn'orth. She resented his fame; he wanted her at home more; she was in hiding from prying press photographers; they've had their most ferocious row to date ...

He flew off to the south of France; a few days later he flew back again for "crisis talks" with his wife. Even as these talks were (or were not) taking place, another unnamed "friend" (a description increasingly difficult to sustain) was telling the Sunday Mirror: "McCartney fled wife after becoming fed up with being a doormat." Then the separation was formally announced: "It is with sadness that we have decided to go our separate ways."

It was the cue for the "friends" to spill their dubious beans: she made him dye his hair or have a facelift; she wanted to give her "hippie husband" a style makeover; she was always putting him down; they rowed so often they used separate hotels; she insisted he give up his beloved spliffs, and was always trying to drag him out to parties.

McCartney was moved to condemn the "100 per cent untrue" coverage, but, given that they were ending their four-year marriage, there must have been substance to some of it. But what? To the reader, consuming the anonymously sourced coverage was like playing Chinese whispers with earplugs in.

What stung the couple most was the charge that she was a manipulative gold-digger. With headlines such as The Sun's "Grabby Road - Nagging Heather could get £400m from Macca", or "Now we'll find out, once and for all, if she's the gold-digger we always suspected" (Daily Mail), Paul twice had to issue statements urging fans to ignore the allegation that Heather married him only for his money. Yet even as he did so, papers were tracking down lawyers prepared to give blood-curdling assessments of how many cleaners she could take him to before hanging him out to dry. The knocking copy was contagious. An insider at Popbitch, the internet gossip board, said: "The general opinion is that she is a gold-digging, hard-faced bitch. As for Paul, they think he's been a silly old fool."

So what is the truth about Heather? There seems little doubt that whatever personal magnetism she possessed did not work its ju-ju on everyone, especially female columnists. To a woman, and without a trace of irony, they criticised her for being in-your-face, bossy and opinionated. And the reports of the problems caused by a 25-year age gap and differing social agendas (she a networker, he a stay-at-home) are sufficiently widespread to have the ring of authenticity in a story not overburdened with such things.

But those who really know Heather say there is another, largely hidden side to her. People such as Jo DeBruycker, the mother of Meghan, a 19-year-old American college kid diagnosed in 2000 with bone cancer so severe that she faced an operation to amputate at the hip. She says: "A family friend emailed Heather's website for advice. The next thing I know, Heather had found us in Willmar, Minnesota, called, and made herself available 24 hours a day. She even gave Meghan her personal cell phone and told her to call any time. She gave her very accurate counselling, and, after the operation, when Paul was touring the US in 2002, she got her to the concert and spent a lot of time with her. She talked to Meghan about girl things, about boys and clothes, and made her feel like a normal girl again."

Meghan died in 2003. Heather sent flowers and also tracked down a video so her mother could hear her daughter's voice again. Ms DeBruycker added: "It was the darkest time of our lives and this person gave us hope. She saved this drowning girl and mother. Meghan never forgot it. It breaks my heart to read what's been written about Heather. She is a remarkable person."

Her friend and co-author of her forthcoming self-help book Life Balance, Ben Noakes, said: "The coverage is a gross injustice. The person I have read about has no bearing on the Heather I know. She is an extremely kind and wonderful friend. Four years ago my business collapsed with significant losses and I lost my home and marriage. Heather came straight round and offered practical and emotional help. She even offered to pay all my bills until I was back on my feet again. And it was all done in a spirit of friendship. There really aren't many people like that."

Keith Kelly, director of Adopt-a-Minefield UK, of which Paul and Heather are patrons, agrees. "They have helped 400,000 directly and helped to clear 21 million square metres of land. Heather has given her money, her time to counsel amputees, and the royalties from her books, out-of-court settlements, proceeds from photographs of her wedding and Beatrice's birth have all been donated to us. She has made an enormous difference to thousands of people's lives."

Seven years ago, Heather's public image was very different. When she had the accident she was, to the general public, unknown. But the story of a model who loses a leg was too good to resist, and no detail of her recovery too small to warrant a story. Some of it was mawkish (telling the story of her abusive childhood), some racy ("We sneaked into my hospital room and made love all night" - the result of her selling her story to The Sun), but all of it was admiring. "Model of courage" (Evening Standard); "Brave model Heather" (People); "Heather is just a walking miracle" (Today); "Wedding bells for campaigning model who fought back from losing leg (The Mail on Sunday) ... the media lapped her up, running adoring story after adoring story.

Until, that is, one day in 1999, she met Paul McCartney at a Daily Mirror awards lunch. Within days of the first story reporting their friendship, the press worm began to turn. "Big mouth Heather has blown it with Macca now," said the Sunday Mirror after she spoke of her friendship with Paul. By April 2000, with marriage to the world's favourite Beatle in prospect, the hounding of Heather had begun. "Heather can never live up to Linda's legend" (People); and "Heather Mills' secret past with Khashoggi's pleasure wife set" (The Mail on Sunday). For "beautiful, charity-working model of courage" now read "dodgy, gold-digging good-time girl".

In keeping the publicity pot on the boil, Heather was sometimes complicit: "Heather wants Paul to propose" (Daily Record), "Being a saint's girlfriend can be bad for you" (The Sunday Times), and, most recently, "It's the cannabis or me, Heather tells McCartney" (Daily Mail). Former husbands, lovers, stepfathers were brought out of obscurity: "Buyer beware should be stamped on her forehead" (People); "Macca's love stole my £20,000 jewels" (News of the World); and "My stepdaughter Heather is just a confused fantasist" (The Mail on Sunday). On it went, after the couple married in 2002, and beyond. "I kept Heather in the lap of luxury for two years before she left and broke my heart" (Sunday Mirror); and many a story of the rift between Paul's designer daughter Stella and her new stepmother. These, and the attendant denials, turned up so regularly that even a Heather supporter must have begun to wonder if there was more to them than Stella's enduring regard for her late mother.

It was, even by the capricious standards of the British tabloids, a remarkable transformation, attributable, in part, to the fact that she had had the temerity to marry Paul. Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono could have told her what it can mean to come between a Beatle and his public, and Paul's late wife, Linda Eastman, endured press sneering and hostility for many years.

This weekend, the latest object of this relentless and uniformly antagonistic reporting is with her daughter, in a wheelchair after her recent operation in the US, and being cared for by her sister Fiona. Paul is in supportive contact "several times a day", no lawyers have yet been consulted, and it seems on the surface, as break-ups go, strikingly free of recrimination.

Mr Noakes says: "They are talking supportively to each other and with a lot of mutual concern. There's no such thing as Heather's camp and Paul's camp. Both are very concerned about the welfare of each other. She's feeling extremely hurt and very raw. She's going through a lot of pain. She's pulled down the shutters and no one can blame her for that."

THE McCARTNEY MILLIONS

Though secretive about the exact size of his fortune, Sir Paul is estimated to be worth some £825m. With no prenuptial agreement, Heather Mills McCartney could be entitled to 25 per cent of that. Here are some of the assets that the lawyers will be arguing over.

MUSIC RIGHTS, PUBLISHING AND ROYALTIES £400m

Sir Paul's company MPL is one of the world's biggest privately owned music publishers and owns the rights to 3,000-plus songs by artists such as Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash, as well as all of Paul's solo tracks. He also owns the rights to musical shows such as Guys and Dolls and Grease. The rights are believed to generate more than £20m a year. Also benefits from a quarter stake in the Beatles' firm Apple Corps.

INHERITANCE £138m

When his first wife Linda died in 1998, Sir Paul inherited the £138m she had amassed from the vegetarian food firm she built up.

ART INVESTMENTS £100m

Sir Paul owns work by the surrealist painter Henri Magritte, but also loves pre-Raphaelites. He was a beneficiary of the sale at Christie's in New York last year of Linda's father Lee Eastman's collection, which held works by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, including Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning, Rothko and Giacometti, earning him about £4m.

INCOME FROM ALBUM SALES AND TOURING IN 2005 £48.5m

The critically well-received album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and a sell-out North American tour were a major boost to his finances. Like many arena performers Sir Paul can make a fortune from every tour. The £82m generated by his Driving USA dates in 2002 made it the highest-grossing American tour that year.

PROPERTY £32m

His substantial property holdings include the 160-acre Peasmarsh estate in East Sussex valued at about £8m; a £5m townhouse in St John's Wood, north London; a £5m Soho flat; the £4m Wycliffe Hall; a £3m Beverly Hills mansion (bought from Courtney Love); a £3m Arizona ranch; a £2m beachfront house in Hove; a £1.5m farm on the Mull of Kintyre; and a £500,000 Wirral home.

PLUS APPROXIMATELY £100m IN OTHER ASSETS