Judge Portrays McCartney's Ex As 'Out of Control'

LONDON, March 18 -- When Heather Mills won a $48.6 million divorce settlement from Paul McCartney on Monday, she asked the judge not to publicly release his full 58-page ruling.

Man, did she have good reason to worry.

In court papers released Tuesday over Mills's strenuous objections, Judge Hugh Bennett took a legal chainsaw to the former model's demands and arguments, including her assertion that she helped the former Beatle write his songs.

The document, based on courtroom testimony and extensive financial records, offers a rare glimpse into the life of one of the world's most famous celebrities and his four-year marriage to a woman 25 years his junior.

Mills had sought a $250 million divorce settlement. But in the papers, Bennett rejected Mills's justifications for her demand as "ridiculous" and "wholly exaggerated." He said Mills "flagrantly overeggs the pudding" with demands for just under $1 million a year for travel expenses, including $370,000 for private planes and helicopters, plus annual payments of $250,000 for clothes and $78,000 for wine (even though she doesn't drink).

"The wife for her part must have felt rather swept off her feet by a man as famous as the husband," Bennett said. "I think this may well have warped her perception leading her to indulge in make-belief."

Bennett used more syllables, and his wording is every bit as tough on Mills as on the British tabloid press, which has rallied around one of England's most beloved national icons in a bitter divorce dispute that has taken almost two years to resolve.

Bennett alluded to Mills's "bad press" in his ruling, saying, "She is entitled to feel that she has been ridiculed, even vilified." But, he said, "to some extent she is her own worst enemy. She has an explosive and volatile character." At other times, he concluded, she had "behaved in an erratic, out of control, and vengeful manner."

And right on cue, Mills dumped a jug of water over the head of McCartney's lawyer.

After Monday's court hearing where the divorce settlement was announced, she had walked up to lawyer Fiona Shackleton inside the courthouse and proclaimed, "I'm not a loser," Mills told the BBC.

With that, she emptied a water jug on the lawyer, who also represented Prince Charles in his divorce from Princess Diana.

"I was very calm," Mills said to the BBC.