We can’t work it out: McCartneys blame split on fans, media
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, May 18, 2006
You’d think that fighting the slaughter of Canadian harp seal pups would be the best kind of glue for holding a couple together, but alas, no. Sir Paul McCartney and his wife of four years, Lady Heather Mills McCartney, a former model, are the latest celeb couple to split, though as far as we know, errant e-mail was not involved.
It’s tempting to blame the breakup on stress over the fate of those adorable seal pups, but you know who’s really at fault? You and I. As is so often the case with celebrity bust-ups, the public made them do it. Or undo it, as the case may be. As McCarthy and Mills explained: It’s been “increasingly difficult” to maintain a normal relationship with the “constant intrusion into our private lives.”
Intrusion into your private lives?
Sorry for being a Beatles fan and buying all your music, Paul, and for making you Britain’s wealthiest musician. And Heather, apologies are due to you for supporting your charity work against land mines and for animal rights, the good deeds you (wisely) fueled with Paul’s celebrity. And for making you such a hot commodity that Vanity Fair profiled you. I can’t even imagine how invasive that must have felt. Mea culpa.
And I also apologize for looking at all those photo-ops you posed for: chatting up the Queen at Paul’s art exhibit, showing the engagement ring in 2001, sitting close and cuddly on a bed, on the ice with the Humane Society of the United States before a seal hunt started. Next time I see a staged picture - or am confronted with a press release issued by YOU - I’ll avert my eyes. Promise.
I can see now that it was us, the media and your adoring public, that caused the split. Not any tension between Paul’s older children and Heather, or her reported jealousy over his fame or the ring given to Paul by his late wife, Linda, who died of breast cancer.
I know I owe not just you, but your little daughter, too. Especially because you’ve made it clear how much harder it is when celebrity parents of a 2-year-old split than when, say, an unemployed truck driver and a waitress working two jobs do, a fact you made clear in yesterday’s statements: “Separation for any couple is difficult enough, but to have to go through this so publicly, especially with a small daughter is immensely stressful.”
So as for the privacy you’ve requested. Don’t worry. I’m not coming over with a comforting casserole.
