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If I had one Question for Paul McCartney…….

Following on from my article, If I had one Question for Katie Piper, which was released to The Group Hug in September of this year, I am now focusing on my next celebrity – Paul McCartney.

Sir Paul McCartney needs no introductions, singer song-writer, poet, Beatles band member and absolute music legend.  Knighted in 1997 for his services to music over his 63 year career, Sir Paul has remained dedicated to music and song-writing as well as a keen animal rights activist, something which he has remained passionate about long after the death of his first wife Linda who was a trail blazer on the subject.

paul mccartney and heather mills

I want to consider Paul’s history of love and what this has taught him over the years.

Blackbird is my favourite Beatles song, written by Sir Paul in 1968.  The lyrics are these:-

‘Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free…. Blackbird fly’.  It’s a beautiful ballad with a gentle melody.

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Paul said it is a particularly difficult piece to play and he does not enjoy being asked to play it. He wrote it with apartheid in mind, the civil rights of black people in particular at a time when they were campaigning to rise up.  That makes sense but the song draws my mind to those who are caught in conflict, a marriage or relationship breakdown and those needing so desperately to be freed, to fly and rebuild their lives and to mend their broken hearts.  Paul experienced this type of heartache for himself during his marriage to second wife Heather Mills.  The break-up was clearly a painful experience and whilst the marriage was short lived, the divorce and settlement was lengthy and evident to the public.

The divorce

At the time the McCartney/Mills divorce was said to be one of the most expensive celebrity splits in history. Not only expensive, it was acrimonious with Heather making various sweeping accusations against Paul – all of which hit the public arena during the two year-long divorce process.  Heather was seeking a settlement of over £100 million but in the event she received one fifth of that including properties in the UK and New York.   Not a bad result for a four year marriage I hear you say.  The Judge said of Miss Mills when summing up after the trial, that her evidence was at odds with the truth and all in all she was not considered to be a particularly credible witness.  There were clearly issues about which we may never get to the bottom but suffice to say that Paul was left with far less in the coffers and looking as if he had suffered ‘a hard day’s night’.

Do you need a pet-nup? Who gets to keep the pet in divorce?

Paul McCartney and moving forward…

With a dent in his finances, Paul gathered himself and moved on.   He learned to fly again and that flight brought him to the arms of the beautiful Nancy Shevell.  A Millionairess in her own right from the fortunes of her American family’s trucking business, Nancy clearly had little interest in Sir Paul’s wealth.  Their relationship has worked and Paul told Nancy on their 9th Wedding anniversary ‘You are my rock and roll, you are my A side and B side, you are my verse and chorus’. 

Paul McCartney and Nancy

All is well for Sir Paul, there is now ‘peace in the neighbourhood’ and I am happy for him but my one question to him would be this ‘did he not consider that a Pre-Nuptial Agreement this time around to protect some of the main wealth might have made sense given all the angst with second wife Heather?’   I understand that he might think that was ‘yesterday’, all his troubles now so far away and that he could resign to just ‘let it be’ but in fact I think Paul would tell me that he is too much of a romantic to consider this at a time when he is clearly in love.   

In fact it is said that the pair do have a legal document in place to protect their children’s established trust funds.  However, beyond that there is no safeguarding and the couple do spend a great deal of time on British soil which would again see any potential dispute on dissolution of marriage hitting the English courts a second time. 

I’ve had two arranged marriages and they both ended

Far be it for me to pour cold water on romance and I do understand that the question of drawing up a Pre-Nuptial Agreement is a tricky one to broach when you are both in the pre-marriage zone.  I also understand that under English rule, there are never any guarantees that Pre-nuptial Agreements will be completely up-held as each individual case is assessed on its own facts.

I wish Sir Paul McCartney well, he has trodden ‘the long and winding road’ and with Nancy by his side he should have ‘no more lonely nights’ and he certainly deserves that.

Article written by Veronica Beard of Bradley Haynes Law Worcester – find Veronica’s contact information in The Hug Directory.

October 2021

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