Mills 'abused by media, like Di'
2007-10-31 16:37
London - Heather Mills has denied she was behind the leak of private documents to newspapers and claimed that, like Princess Diana, she suffered abuse at the hands of the media.
The estranged wife of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney has said the pressure of the sensational attacks in the media had driven her close to suicide and urged a boycott of Britain's tabloid newspapers.
Mills' divorce dealings with the singer-songwriter have been anything but friendly, particularly after private court documents detailing unflattering claims against McCartney appeared in newspapers.
Mills, a former model turned charity worker, denied she was behind the leak.
And amid claims she had been offered up to £60m as a settlement, she said she had been "offered nothing" in the divorce but was unable to discuss the case for legal reasons.
"How do you know if I even want any money? I'm £1.5m in debt in lawyers' fees, and that's as much as I can say or I go to jail, for telling the truth," she said.
'Claims are rubbish'
"So I'm gagged at the moment because I'm not allowed to say a word while the media are fed this spin by a certain corner."
She also rubbished claims she wants a clause in her divorce settlement to allow her to sell her story.
Mills said she had suffered 18 months of abuse at the hands of the media, likening her treatment to that of princess Diana and Kate McCann, whose four-year-old daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May.
"I have a box of evidence that's going to a certain person should anything happen to me, so if you top me off it's still going to that person, and the truth will come out," she said.
Leaked documents which emerged after Diana's death in 1997 suggested that she at one point feared she might be killed. The inquest into her death in a Paris road tunnel is currently underway in London
.