Heather Mills ‘struggled’ to live with Paul McCartney as he kept shrine to late wife Linda

Heather Mills couldn’t escape the ghost of ex-husband Sir Paul McCartney’s late wife Linda, according to a new documentary.

The Trials of Heather Mills, which airs at 9pm on Channel 5 this evening, features the former model’s confidante Pamela Cockerill, who opens up about the early days of Mills’ six-year marriage to the former Beatle.

The couple – who had a 25-year age gap – met in May 1999 at the Pride of Britain Awards in London, just over a year after Sir Paul’s first wife Linda died of breast cancer.

McCartney was married to Linda for 29 years and they shared three children together. He also adopted Linda’s daughter from a previous marriage.

Following their 2002 wedding, Mills moved into his home in Rye, East Sussex, which McCartney had bought with Linda in 1973.

During the 90-minute TV special, Cockerill – who wrote Mills’ 1996 biography Out On A Limb – explains how Mills struggled living in the shadow of “inescapable presence” Linda.

She said: “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.

“And the house hadn’t been changed that much. [Linda] was an inescapable presence because obviously, she was a big part of Paul’s life.”

She further claimed that McCartney had included tributes of his love for his first wife into the design of some of the rooms.

She continued: “There were little plaques saying ‘I love Linda’ over the doorways and photos of her around.

“It must have been very hard to deal with.”

Author Howard Sounes, who wrote the biography Fab: An Intimate Life Of Paul McCartney, agreed that Mills faced a number of challenges.

He said: “I’m sure it must have been very difficult for Heather to move into the life of a man who had been famously happily married for years.

“They had children together and I’m sure he was still in love with Linda. He probably hadn’t got over it.

“He kept Linda’s ring on until the day before he married Heather.”

McCartney and Mills welcomed daughter Beatrice in 2002. They divorced in 2006.