Heather Mills’ Life After Paul McCartney — From £24.3 Million Divorce Settlement to New Marriage, Vegan Business and World Records

Heather Mills first became a fixture in the headlines more than 25 years ago when her relationship with Beatles legend Paul McCartney thrust her into the international spotlight.

The former model, who lost the lower part of her left leg after being struck by a police motorbike in 1993, began dating McCartney in 2000. The pair married two years later and welcomed daughter Beatrice in 2003.

But the relationship unravelled quickly, and by 2006 the couple had separated.

What followed was one of the most heavily scrutinised celebrity divorces of the era, after which Mills largely withdrew from the public attention that had surrounded her marriage.

In the years since, however, she has built a life that has included another relationship, vegan businesses, animal-rights campaigning and an unexpected sporting career that took her into the record books.

Her marriage to Paul McCartney ended in a bitter public divorce

Mills and McCartney began their relationship in 2000, several years after the death of his first wife, Linda McCartney, from breast cancer.

They married in June 2002 and welcomed Beatrice the following year.

Their marriage lasted only a few years before the couple announced their separation in 2006.

Mills later claimed in interviews that tensions involving McCartney’s family contributed to the breakdown of the relationship, and she made particularly harsh comments about his daughter Stella McCartney, describing the fashion designer as “evil” and “jealous.”

The divorce became even more contentious when financial proceedings reached the Royal Courts of Justice in 2008.

Mills reportedly sought £125 million, while McCartney proposed a much smaller figure.

The eventual settlement was worth £24.3 million in total, including a cash award of around £16.5 million and assets valued at approximately £7.8 million.

The enormous public interest surrounding the case ensured that Mills remained closely associated with McCartney long after their marriage ended.

Mills later gave her own account of the relationship

For years after the divorce, Mills rarely spoke in detail about her former marriage.

That changed in 2023 when she appeared in the Channel 5 documentary The Trials of Heather Mills.

The programme explored not only her relationship with McCartney but also her difficult childhood and the experiences that shaped her long before she became internationally famous.

It offered one of the rare occasions in which Mills publicly revisited such a controversial period of her life from her own perspective.

Her marriage to McCartney had dominated media coverage for years, but Mills increasingly attempted to redirect attention toward her business, charity and sporting interests.

She reportedly married again despite once ruling it out

After her divorce, Mills had suggested that marriage was no longer something she wanted.

Yet reports later emerged that she had quietly married businessman Mike Dickman in 2021.

Their relationship first became public in 2019, and the pair were reportedly engaged two years later before holding a small and private wedding ceremony.

Mills has generally avoided discussing Dickman publicly.

During a rare appearance on Lorraine, however, she revealed that the pair had met while travelling by train.

“I don’t really talk about him because I really respect people’s privacy,” she said.

She also joked that romance does not necessarily require dating apps.

“Just go and chat to people,” she said.

Vegan business became a major focus

Away from her private life, Mills increasingly concentrated on vegan food and animal-rights campaigning.

She became a patron of animal-rights organisation Viva! in 2005 and later invested heavily in plant-based food businesses.

Mills acquired vegan food company VBites and put millions of pounds of her own money into the operation after failing to secure the government loan she had sought.

The business later ran into serious financial difficulty in 2023.

After administrators became involved, Mills repurchased assets connected with the company in an effort to save parts of the operation.

Her involvement in plant-based food has also attracted inevitable comparisons with Linda McCartney, whose vegetarian food brand became a successful and enduring business.

For Mills, however, veganism became closely connected with her own animal-rights campaigning and wider belief that money could be used to support causes rather than simply accumulated.

‘Why die on a tomb of it?’

Mills has spoken openly about her complicated attitude toward wealth.

In an interview with The Argus Podcast, she said she had never felt particularly emotionally attached to money, despite becoming wealthy through her various ventures and divorce settlement.

She linked that attitude partly to an unstable childhood.

“My mum left when I was nine and my dad went to prison when I was 13,” Mills said. “I had to bring up the family. I appreciated the value of money.”

But she said money became more meaningful once she understood what she could accomplish with it.

“Why die on a tomb of it when you can do something with it,” she said.

Mills added that she had never understood people who became obsessed with wealth and instead preferred the idea of using it to make a difference.

She has also been associated with a number of charitable causes over the years.

When she appeared on Dancing With The Stars, it was widely reported that she donated her earnings to Viva!.

A remarkable second career in sport

Perhaps the most unexpected chapter of Mills’ post-McCartney life came through competitive skiing.

Her 1993 accident had resulted in the amputation of the lower part of her left leg, but nearly two decades later she began pursuing alpine skiing at an elite adaptive level.

Mills launched her competitive skiing career in 2011 and went on to win medals while also setting multiple records.

Her most notable achievement came in 2015, when she reached a speed of 103.6mph.

That performance earned her recognition from Guinness World Records as the fastest disabled woman in the world.

Her record-setting efforts were not limited to skiing.

Mills also established records in winter-sport disciplines including skeleton, bobsleigh and ski jumping, creating a sporting career few would have predicted during the years when she was known primarily as McCartney’s wife.

A life increasingly defined beyond the Beatles connection

For many people, Heather Mills’ name will always be linked to Paul McCartney and the extraordinary publicity surrounding their divorce.

Their marriage lasted only a few years, but its aftermath followed her for much longer.

Yet the decades since have taken her in several very different directions.

She has remarried, built and rebuilt businesses, continued campaigning for animal welfare and pushed herself into elite adaptive sport.

Her life after McCartney has included significant setbacks as well as unusual achievements, but it has also allowed her to build an identity far removed from the tabloid narrative that once surrounded her.

What began as one of the most closely watched celebrity relationships of the early 2000s eventually became only one chapter in a much broader and far less predictable story.