Heather Mills vs. Paul McCartney

When ex-Beatle Paul McCartney met ex-model Heather Mills in 1999, it was under the most noble of circumstances -- he attended a charity event for her trust, which, among other things, campaigns against the use of landmines in warfare. (Mills, who'd lost a leg in a traffic accident six years earlier, wore a prosthetic and devoted herself to the outlawing of landmines, which have also taken many a limb.) Yet Sir Paul, himself no stranger to celebrity activism, had no idea the course his life would eventually take when he began dating her a little over a year after the death of longtime wife Linda; although their marriage produced a daughter, Beatrice, it had already soured by 2004. And although the couple made an "amicable" joint statement announcing their separation in 2006, subsequent events have turned the ensuing divorce into a full-blown media circus, effectively destroying the duo's original plea for privacy.

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Beatles fans, many of them female, have long felt protective of Paul in particular, who was not only dubbed "The Cute One" but established a reputation as the most romantically inclined of the four. Indeed, love, commitment and family have been constant themes in his work both during and after the group's existence. Fans have therefore naturally been suspicious of any woman who attempts to claim him, and while females were originally hesitant to accept Linda Eastman as his wife in the late Sixties, their constant companionship eventually won them over. So when Paul met and began dating another blonde a year after Linda's untimely death from breast cancer in 1998, eyebrows were also raised. Heather's since been painted as a gold digger due to her fast courtship and relatively quick marriage to the ex-Beatle, who is reportedly worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 825 million pounds (or approximately $1.5 billion US). Added to this is the intriguing way McCartney continued to defend his wife shortly after the divorce against Britain's notoriously acid press, only to decide that he would contest her divorce proceedings. This indicates that there's a strong difference of opinion over just what went wrong -- and just what Mills may be entitled to. McCartney filed for divorce in July of 2006 after two months of separation; pre-trial hearings have already begun.