Heather Mills Gets A Divorce Settlement Of $57 Million From Paul McCartney

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has offered his estranged wife Heather Mills a divorce settlement of £25 million ($57 million), the Daily Mirror reported today.

Quoting unnamed sources, the tabloid said that McCartney initially offered Mills between £3 million and £5 million, but Mills's legal team had negotiated that up to the current offer, with one source saying "it's the closest they have been" on settlement sums.

"There has been serious wrangling going on behind the scenes for months and months and months and he [Mills's lawyer Anthony Julius] has finally managed to get them to hike the package up to about £25 million," a well-placed source told the paper.

"There is no guarantee they will settle but it's the closest they have been."

The pair's legal teams were still negotiating the details of the deal, including a confidentiality clause that McCartney had insisted Mills sign, the paper said.

Media reports have suggested that Mills was seeking up to £60 million from McCartney's reported £825 million fortune to end their marriage, which collapsed last year.

McCartney, 65, and Mills, 39, a former model who lost a leg in a 1993 road accident, married in 2002, four years after the musician's first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer.

Since they split last year, the couple's divorce has been played out acrimoniously in the public eye, with Mills saying in March that securing a divorce deal was like "getting blood out of a stone".

On the £25 million offer, an unidentified source close to McCartney told the Mirror: "His [McCartney's] legal team knows a judge is unlikely to award Heather a package of much more than about £25 million so he has offered that and now all he has to do is sit and wait.

"It's now in Heather's hands. Paul has always been prepared to go all the way, but if it can be sorted out before then, he's not going to stand in the way."

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Paul McCartney And Heather Mills Bring Their Divorce To A Finish

A Thick fog enveloping London added to the air of secrecy as Paul McCartney and Heather Mills arrived separately to hammer out a deal in the most celebrated and potentially most costly divorce battle in British legal history.

The estranged couple arrived at the judge's entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice in Holborn yesterday for negotiations to finalise the agreement.

Amid a clamour of media interest in the case, neither the judge nor the exact venue had been disclosed and Mills was led from her car with a blanket covering her head.

The aim of the hearing, which comes after months of acrimony and accusations, is to agree a financial settlement and avoid the dispute going to further costly and public hearings.

McCartney, 65, has reportedly offered £20 million ($45 million), but Mills, 39, is said to be seeking closer to £50 million.

Divorce lawyers following the case believe the couple will be keen to reach a settlement as they are anxious to shield their three-year-old daughter Beatrice from a lengthy legal process. Some divorce specialists have predicted McCartney - worth an estimated £825 million - faces a total payout approaching £70 million.

The deal is expected to outstrip the £48 million that insurance broker John Charman, 53, was ordered to pay his former wife Beverley in May this year, in Britain's biggest contested divorce settlement to date.

The former Beatle married Mills, an ex-model, in June 2002, four years after his first wife Linda died of breast cancer. They met at a charity event in 1999 and their early relationship was characterised by newspaper headlines claiming that McCartney's three grown-up children disapproved of the match.

The pair seemed united by their love of charity work and campaigning but Mills, who lost a leg in a road accident in 1993, remained unpopular with the public and the press.

Since their union broke down last year, the couple's divorce has been played out acrimoniously in the public eye, with Mills saying in March that securing a divorce deal was like "getting blood out of a stone". Sir Paul has mostly kept quiet during the proceedings.

Mills also appeared on the US television show Dancing With the Stars, where she won fans for her determination to master the tricky dance routines.

Relations between Mills and McCartney appear to be thawing. They have been pictured in public together and are said to be making an effort to get along for the sake of their daughter.

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