Heather Mills bites back: her plan for world domination

[Guest guest]

Hermione Eyre, ES Magazine. Photographs by Lee Strickland. Styled by Orsolya

Szabo

31.07.09 Heather Mills is saving the world again, this time through the medium

of fish-free fishfingers. And streaky 'bacon' made of soya dyed pink and white.

It's her latest obsession: meatless meats.

 

There are cartons of faux chicken stacked all over her sitting room in Hove,

ready for delivery to her smart new vegan café down the road. 'I realised that

meat production was causing global warming,' she says. 'So I went to Taiwan and

developed a range of vegan meatless meat products.'

 

Well, why not? Many divorcées spend their alimony on antiques or tennis lessons,

or younger lovers. Actually, Heather does have a 36-year-old lover - 'the most

gorgeous guy I've ever set eyes on,' as she tells me - because life can't be all

meatless meat.

 

Her home, close to Norman Cook and Zoë Ball's on Hove's 'millionaires' row', is

pitched so close to the sea you could skim pebbles from her (purple velvet)

sofa. When I arrive she is having her make-up done by three hand-maidens, young

local lovelies who laugh at her jokes, repaint her body make-up and fetch spare

prostheses: 'Darlin', will you grab me a high-heel leg?' (Evening shoes call for

evening legs.) 'The one I want is the one with Beatrice tattooed on the bottom.'

 

What? 'I'm too scared to have a tattoo on my body so I've done it on my

artificial leg instead.' Sure enough, the girl appears carrying a limb with a

portrait of five-year-old Beatrice etched on the ankle.

 

Heather, 41, is on a mission to turn the world vegan, starting with her

entourage. Her security guards are now scoffing tofu and lettuce, she assures

me, and so are their wives. There's a long list of employees pinned to her

fridge - including four plumbers, a piano professional and an eco-upholstery

cleaner - maybe the ones with crosses by their names are still carnivores.

'Everyone who works for me eventually goes vegan,' she says firmly, 'by their

own choice.' I even see her chucking her dog, Ollie, a fake chicken nugget. But

her zealous veganism --vegangelicalism? - hasn't always worked. 'I could never

get him to go vegan,' she says in a small, tight voice.

 

Paul McCartney is He Who Shall Not Be Named. We're here to talk motherhood,

independence and soya sausages, and her PR and a handmaiden loiter beside us

during the interview to make sure of it. But still there are lots of pointed

digs at McCartney, whom she married in 2002 and divorced last year. She

describes her 'partner of 15 months', holidayrepturned-snooker-player Jamie

Walker, as 'Exactly what I need, a man without ego. You can't have a partnership

like this' - she demonstrates one hand crushing another - It's got to be like

this': both hands equal.

 

In many ways she seems over the marriage. Although I spot a copy of How to

Survive the Loss of a Love on her shelves, I can't imagine she spends much time

sniffling into it. But then again, she has just founded a vegan food empire,

which is so not copying Linda McCartney. Linda's was only vegetarian. Heather is

keen to point out that she was promoting vegan food 'years' before she met Paul.

Just look at the GMTV interview she did in 1994, recommending garlic (better

than antibiotics, apparently), enemas and wheatgrass - which isn't quite the

same thing as veganism, although she was already bad-mouthing dairy products

back then, as she is today. 'Milk? It's cow's pus,' she declares.

 

Heather has been vegan (consuming no animal products at all) for six years.

Beatrice has been brought up 'naturally, homeopathically and, of course, totally

vegan'. She's off with her nanny today.

 

Has she never come back from a friend's saying, 'Mummy, I ate a sausage?' 'She

doesn't want to eat animals. When we went ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center

in New York, there was a hot dog stand and she said, " Mummy, can I have a hot

dog? " And I said, " Of course you can, sweetie, it's your choice " - she's always

had that freedom. She said, " I don't want it if it's from the animals. Find me a

hot dog that's not from the animals, " and I was like [hits head], I haven't

developed a vegan hot dog...' Typical. You go to Taiwan and develop every kind

of meatless meat apart from the one your daughter wants. They found a vegan

wiener shop just round the corner, though, and Beatrice said, 'You are a miracle

worker, Mummy.'

 

'Beatrice questions everybody who eats animals. When we were in the South of

France, there was a buffet for kids, and by the end of the week no one would sit

near us because she would go over and say, " Why are you eating that cow's

bottom? " or " Oh, look at that little shrimp with little eyes... "

 

Heather fancies herself a plain talker, no airs, definitely no graces. There's a

sign in her loo that says: 'If any items apart from toilet paper get dropped in

here, the bog monster will reach out and grab your dick or punani!' 'You need to

be real,' she says, enlarging on why she has never had trouble attracting men.

'Down-to-earth, not fussy, not pretentious. I'll carry boxes, I'll clean

toilets. I peeled 260 potatoes the other Sunday. That's why my nails are gone.'

 

It could also have something to do with the fact that her manicurist, Kerry

Newman, went tabloid kamikaze, selling her personal 'revelations' (Heather's

still in love with Paul, apparently, and forces her housekeeper to coordinate

her bras). Another lackey bites the dust. They often do. Currently, a former

nanny, Sara Trumble, is suing for sex discrimination (allegedly Mills made her

get up at 7.30am to baste her with fake tan). 'She was a lovely person to start

with, but she was with me five years and I spoilt her rotten and her head went

into the clouds with all the travel and she sold her soul.'

 

Talking to Heather is making me dizzy. Almost sleepy. It might be the intensity

of her pale-eyed stare, reminiscent of that hypnotic snake in The Jungle Book.

It might be the lilting insistence of the Geordie voice: 'Vegetables are vegan.

Fruit is vegan. Rice is vegan...' It wears you down, so when she gets more

controversial - the US government suppressing negative findings about the dairy

industry - you just nod and smile.

 

So you can guess who won the battle over whether Beatrice should be educated

privately or, like Paul McCartney's other daughters, at a state school. At their

other home in Kent, Beatrice keeps a pony. It's a far cry from Heather's own

childhood in Washington, Tyne and Wear, where she had to care for her younger

siblings after her mother left her allegedly abusive father. By ten she was 'an

old hand' at pinching food from supermarkets, as she wrote in her autobiography

Out on a Limb. 'I would love to have had the life and the love Beatrice has.

That's why I'm over the top with her.'

 

'I love you! I love you!' Mills tells Beatrice when she drops in on our

photoshoot with her Australian nanny. She is an only child and it looks set to

stay that way. 'Never say never, but the world is so full of people that I think

I'm lucky to have had one.' Mills insists that Beatrice isn't spoilt. 'I go to

my friends in Newcastle and they have so many more toys than her, she's... oh,

in wonderland. She's much more about outdoors play. Not toy overloaded.' But is

it true she had a rather special fireworks display at her fourth birthday,

featuring a £10,000 exploding hot air balloon...? The shutters come down. 'I

can't talk any more about my daughter.'

 

It's often alleged that Mills is extravagant, but I see no obvious materialism.

'I could be shopping and going out for lunch,' she says, but instead she's

investing in meatless meats, acquiring the vegan Redwood Wholefood Company,

subsidising the café ('The prices are ridiculously low, but I want people to try

vegan food'), a cruelty-free shoe company Beyond Skin, an eco-couture enterprise

(restyling charity shop clothes) and algaebased omega-3 capsules to save the

fish. You wonder how long the £20 million will last. A reference to the actress

Natalie Portman's vegan shoe line Te Casan, now discontinued, elicits: 'But she

had plenty of money to carry on, a lot more than I would ever have.

 

'I've just put everything I have into making this [the meatless café] work

because, you know, life's short... It could have a huge impact but only if I

make it into a worldwide franchise and roll it out across America.'

 

Mills ponders the story of her life. 'Why didn't I lose my leg when I was doing

humanitarian work in Yugoslavia? I had to come back here to get my leg chopped

off and get media attention. Why did my mother have to lose her leg, too?' Her

mother actually lost a leg? (This is one of the issues on which Heather and the

rest of the world, including her mother's then husband, the actor Charles

Stapley, disagree. He maintains that her leg was crushed in a car crash but that

she made a good recovery.)

 

'Well, they reattached it. It was hanging off by the skin. We didn't have much

time together, because she left when I was nine, but it's weird how genetically

you're the same. She did a lot of public speaking, and she was into homeopathy;

she was quite innovative, so people thought she was nuts. She brought homeopathy

to the Royal Marsden cancer hospital. She died aged 47. That's six years from

now I'll be her age.' Heather looks into her rice milk latte with a soulful,

prophetic expression that has a hint of 'You'll be sorry when I'm gone'.

 

Does she still feel her own security is at risk? Last year on that infamous GMTV

interview, when she complained she'd had 'worse press than a paedophile or a

murderer', she said that the police had told her she'd had death threats from 'a

Liverpool underground movement'. She says no, she doesn't feel at risk any more,

because the death threats were 'a set-up, to try and make sure that someone

could get custody of my daughter, because she wasn't safe with me'. She makes

this extraordinary allegation quickly, flashing her bitterness like a knife.

 

'God, that's so dark,' I say. 'Yup. So it was nice because I found out the whole

thing wasn't happening. But it was a horrific thing to try and do.' And does she

still have security? 'Yeah, full-time.' I haven't seen any sign of them. Are

they around now? 'Always, yeah.' She looks behind her, semi-smiling at her

invisible minders.

 

Then comes my favourite moment. I ask if Beatrice is musical. 'Well, yeah,

because all her family are - I play saxophone and oboe, my brother plays bass

trombone and has a rock band, my sister plays the flute, my mother played piano

and my dad played six instruments, so...' I look at her sideways, trying to get

her to laugh. Not a smile. But then, almost as an afterthought: 'And then her

dad's musical, so, yes, she's totally musical.' Beatrice must think that, of her

parents, it's Mummy who is the real achiever.

 

When we head down to her VBites café, it's buzzing. There are toddlers with soya

bolognese all over their faces, old folk peering suspiciously at the pink thing

inside their 'BLT', and stargazers who want Heather to sign their bill. There

are six types of milk (soya, rice, almond, hazelnut, oat, quinoa) and

holier-than-thou cupcakes (no gluten, no sugar) whirring round on a Yo!

Sushi-style conveyor belt. 'Nice,' I say, and she replies, 'Thanks.' She saw

them in Japan 15 years ago and thought they would work over here.

 

In Heather's world, she has to be the heroine of every story. Still, I really

hope her café and her meatless meats succeed. She's infuriating and charismatic;

visionary and egotistical all at once. It's like the good fairy and the bad were

playing top trumps over her cradle. But both of them forgot to bestow one thing:

a sense of irony. She looks out over the grey, windy Hove Lagoon, a hangout for

pre-teen hoodies but otherwise deserted, even in mid-July, and says, 'I'm gonna

turn this into an ice rink. It'll be just like Central Park.'

 

Make-up by Natalie Dean. Fashion assistant: Matilda Goad

 

 

 

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Vegan Heather buys `ethical' food firm to rival Linda McCartney's

 

Reader views (10) Add your view

 

She is driven by her passion and it seems at times confused by her own

intensity; nothing a good psychotherapy course couldn't fix but until then, she

is running from her childhood unhappiness. As for now. none of us are privy to

anything in her personal life. No, we're not, no matter what you think you know

from reading. anything from the bunch of journalists paid to write something,

anything for their own living by trailing people in the limelight (egad, what a

career choice!). Look to your own glasshouse first and do not stand in judgment

as if you truly understand. It is important that people consider their food

choices and impact on the planet and animals and Ms Mills is doing her bit - are

you doing yours?

 

- Rachelle, Wibbersmith Port

 

The women is mad!

 

- C Cusano, Bedford

 

I think she misses Paul. It's so obvious to me, she's so bitter. She can't even

acknowledge her daughter has musical talent because of him. Why so much space

devoted to her. It does her no favors.

 

- Laura, WPB, USA

 

Asia has had " fake " gluten based meat for years, so she didn't develop anything.

She might have got a brand name out which is all well and good.

 

- Harry, london

 

Fish-free fishfingers????? How does that work? Surely it's just a finger...

 

.... " holier-than-thou cupcakes (no gluten, no sugar... " no taste, no fun)

 

- Escobar A-Lop-Lop, Mad as hell and not taking it anymore...

 

After reading Beatrice is musical because of Heather's side of the family, I had

the best laugh in a long time. Who is she kidding with this, nobody. This is why

nobody takes with woman seriously. She can't even state the obvious.

 

- Tede, USA

 

Does she ever read her previous interviews? The contradictions she herself

states in this interview alone are mind boggling. She herself stated that in

actuality her mother did not really lose her leg, but again in this interview

she states her mother lost her leg. Guess what, Heather, most intelligent people

actually remember what they have read, and again, these are her quotes, not made

up stories, which seems to be her defense whenever she gets caught in a lie. The

worst part is she comes across as delusional, and this does not help our way of

life at all. Of course, being that I am only a vegetarian, in her view, makes me

not quite as worthy since I'm not vegan. It is amazing that she really does not

understand that all of this makes her very unlikeable, to say the least. If she

would only just contribute and not preach and self-promte she might be able to

get people to actually listen and not turn away in disgust.

 

- Jenn, Santa Barbara USA

 

I see she has never gotten off the topic of slamming McCartney. She needs to get

over herself. Her holiday rep boyfriend is on her payroll. He better not ever

question anything or he will be fired.

No wonder Paul divorced her. The girl would be better off with her father.

Bea is not an only child. She has four siblings.

 

- Barbara, USA

 

The new boyfriend is not an equal as she supports him financially after picking

him up on a vacation. She dominates him I would think. She is vile in her digs

at McCartney. He seemed to have supported all her activities when they were

married (the judge said so). Now he supports her financially. She should at

least be good enough to keep her mouth shut about him. She was the one who

behaved badly in the divorce. She still shows signs of lunacy accusing her

husband of threatening her. I hope she fails.

 

- Marie, USA

 

Looks like a good time to avoid HOVE

 

- Donald Stavert, London