Mills blames Sir Paul for split

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Heather Mills has criticised her estranged husband Sir Paul McCartney in a US TV interview - a day after she hit out at the media on British TV.

Mills said she promised Sir Paul she would "walk away with nothing" in a "very gentle and quick divorce" if he took the blame for their split.

In an interview on US show Today, she claimed he agreed to take responsibility but "did nothing".

Sir Paul's spokeswoman declined to comment.

The couple, who married in 2002, are in the middle of divorce negotiations.

They have a four-year-old daughter, Beatrice.

"All I can say is when we first split, I said to Paul: 'I'm going to be crucified. You know why we split. You know the truth. They don't need to know the details, but you need to stand up and say [you are] responsible for the breakdown of this marriage,'" Mills told the NBC programme.

The couple's separation has been very high profile

She said Sir Paul was a "broken man" when she met him and that he was unable to perform on stage.

"I was a huge support for Paul. I put all my own work except my charity on hold for the seven-and-a-half years we were together," she added.

The interview followed Mills' emotional outburst on UK breakfast programme GMTV earlier this week, in which she accused the tabloid press of "pushing her to the edge".

She said she had received death threats and been "close to suicide".

British newspapers were largely unsympathetic, with one tabloid describing her as "self-pitying".

Government minister David Lammy told BBC One's Question Time he had found it "disturbing" to watch the Mills interview.

"I did feel actually quite sorry for her. I do think she is a woman very much on the edge," he said.

It was definitely the wrong thing to do Phil Hall, Heather Mills' former spokesman

"It was actually quite disturbing to watch and I hope that perhaps she seeks the right support because it's not nice to see someone who clearly is losing themselves to the media frenzy surrounding them and, in the end, a marriage that is breaking down.

"And she does have a child, so I do feel for her in that sense," he added.

Meanwhile, Mills' press spokesman has resigned following her GMTV interview because he felt her public outburst was "a mistake".

"It was definitely the wrong thing to do," said Phil Hall, who was hired by Mills in 2006 after her marriage split.

"I'm very sad about it. We've been through a lot during the last two years and it's a shame," he told the Reuters news agency.

Mr Hall said he had advised Mills to not respond to bad press coverage.

"My view is that you need good relations with the media to turn the negative into the positive and I advise always to ignore the stuff thrown at you," said the former editor of tabloid newspaper The News of the World.