Their marriage was one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest love stories, they barely spent a night apart in three decades and when The Beatles broke up, they joined forces musically. So when Linda McCartney died in 1998, leaving Paul a widower at just 55 years old, fans imagined he’d never find love again.
Now, in a revealing new documentary, his second wife, Heather Mills, has revealed how she struggled to live in Linda’s shadow after falling for Paul just a year after the photographer’s death from breast cancer.
McCartney and Mills were married from 2002-2008.
(Image: Getty)In The Trials Of Heather Mills, close friend Pamela Cockerill tells how Paul’s first wife was an “inescapable presence” in Heather and Paul’s relationship.
“I think Heather found it quite hard to live in the same house that, only a couple of years before, Linda had been living in,” says Pamela.
“And the house hadn’t been changed that much. [Linda] was an inescapable presence because obviously she was such a big part of Paul’s life.”
The ghostwriter of Heather’s biography Out On A Limb added that Paul had even made a shrine to his late wife.
“There were little plaques saying ‘I love Linda’ over the doorways and photos of her all around,” says Pamela.
Prior to the couple dating, Linda was also a press photographer at The Beatles press launch of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
(Image: Getty)MEANT TO BE
Paul said there was an “instant attraction” when he first met New York photographer and single mum Linda in a London nightclub in 1967.
They married two years later, with Linda’s six-year-old daughter Heather acting as a bridesmaid. Heartbroken Beatles fans mobbed the newlyweds.
Their love was immortalised in The Beatles’ Two Of Us as well as Paul’s songs The Lovely Linda, Man We Was Lonely and Maybe I’m Amazed, and they went on to have three children, Mary, 53, Stella, 51, and James, 45, as well as working together in their band, Wings.
Paul and Linda toured together as part of the band Wings.
(Image: Getty)Paul spoke about his utter heartbreak when Linda died, admitting, “I think I cried for about a year on and off.
“You expect to see them walk in, this person you love, because you are so used to them,” he said.
But just 13 months later, Heather and Paul met and quickly began dating. Although they married in 2002, Paul reportedly kept on the ring he wore while married to Linda until the night before the nuptials.
After welcoming their daughter Beatrice the following year, Paul and Heather separated in 2006, with the former Beatle calling their union one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
Their bitter divorce battle led to Heather receiving around $109 million after the judge decided Paul was worth $750 million at the time.
Paul and Nancy have been married since 2011.
(Image: Getty)In 2011, Paul married Nancy Shevell, with the now 80-year-old revealing last Valentine’s Day that he tries to be “a considerate and romantic” husband to his third wife.
“There’s not just one card, there are cards hidden around the room… it’s completely silly,” he sweetly admitted.
