Beatle McCartney confirms new love

Sir Paul McCartney: In love again at 58

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Former Beatles singer Sir Paul McCartney has spoken publicly for the first time of his new romance with model Heather Mills.

In a programme on independent British television to be aired on Sunday, McCartney appears as a surprise guest during an interview with Mills.

"Sir Paul and Heather are quite clearly madly in love and we are delighted to have been part of that," Will Hanrahan, the show's producer, said on Saturday.

McCartney spoke of how his year-long relationship with Mills had helped him overcome the pain of losing his wife of more than 30 years, Linda, who died two years after suffering breast cancer.

"Obviously, I'd been going through a hard time," he was quoted in Britain's Guardian newspaper as saying.

"Now I've got romance back in my life. I love her, and I get a lot of pleasure from that."

McCartney, who is 58, said he had first seen Mills at an awards ceremony, after which he phoned her on the pretext of discussing her charity work.

"She came to the office to talk about the charity and I realised I fancied her."

He confessed last month in a newspaper that he still talked to Linda and had asked for her approval of his new romance.

Mills, who is 26 years his junior, was quoted as saying: "I thought he was very cute but it didn't enter my head that he fancied me."

Hanrahan thanked McCartney for helping in the making of the "Stars and their Lives" show to be broadcast on ITV television, but said he was disappointed that British media coverage ahead of the showing had focused only on the romance.

"This was just one part of the show," he said. "Heather told of how she was homeless and lived under the arches at London's Waterloo station, and how her mother also lost her leg in an accident."

Mills, whose charity the Heather Mills Trust provides artificial limbs for land mine victims, lost part of her left leg in an accident with a police motorbike.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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