Heather Mills is seething with rage over her soon-to-be-ex-hubby’s lip-locking love affair with a wealthy Hamptons socialite.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mills allegedly shouted at the beloved Beatle during a phone call she made after spying paparazzi pictures of him spending last weekend romantically paling around with their old family friend, Nancy Shevell.
“There was a huge row,” a source told London’s The Mirror newspaper. “Heather asked what the hell he thought he was up to.”
What Paul McCartney was up to was a three-day weekend of wooing the sexy, brown-haired Shevell, a politically-connected millionairess who is separated from her wealthy lawyer husband.
Photographers caught the pair last weekend dining romantically, shopping at a lingerie store, walking along the beach, and exchanging a tender kiss.
When the shots hit the papers this week, Mills appeared to take the high road. She told reporters that Paul “can do whatever he wants.” She also said that Paul assured her he and the 47-year-old Shevell were just friends.
But in reality, she was incensed that he hadn’t told her he was seeing their old mutual friend. When she actually talked to him her tone was much different than her public statement, The Mirror reported.
“Heather demanded to know what the hell he was up to,” a pal told the paper. “She asked him how he thinks their daughter, Bea, would feel to see her dad and his new girlfriend splashed all over the papers.”
Many observers are stunned by the marked similarities between Shevell and Paul’s true love, his late first wife, Linda.
Both were New York heiresses – Nancy to her family’s mob-connected trucking business and Linda to her mom’s department store fortune.
Both suffered from cancer, and were diagnosed a year apart. Both hooked up with Paul after going through a marital split. Both went to college in Arizona.
One major difference is political. While Linda, like Paul, was a liberal peace-lover and seal-hugger, Shevell is a rank-and-file Republican who eats meat. She’s so tied into the GOP that former Gov. Pataki put her on the board of the MTA in 2001 for a 10-year term.
Also, Linda was an artsy photographer who played in her hubby’s band. Shevell is a highly focused businesswoman known for taking paperwork everywhere and who is so cool, slick and reserved that Paul’s grown children call her “Jackie O.”
She is also reportedly much more high maintenance than the crunchy Linda. The Mirror described her as “pampered and spoiled but feisty.”
While Heather seethes, Shevell’s significant other, her estranged husband Bruce Blakeman, was not wasting his time pouting, pals said.
“He said he and Nancy had been separated for quite some time and he’s not pissed at all about it,” one close friend who spoke with Blakeman, told The Post. “He says he has been dating for quite some time, too, but no one in particular.”
Women around the Hamptons were already licking their chops at the prospect that the sliver-haired Blakeman – a well-known Long Island politician and Port Authority commissioner – would again be on the dating market.
“He is very handsome by all women’s standards. He’s got a Richard Gere look about him. He’ll have no problem getting a date. He is really well liked in these parts,” said one eager East Ender.
The McCartney love bombshell will have at least a small effect on New York straphangers.
Fellow MTA board members told Shevell that she should skip last night’s hearing on a proposed subway-rate hike, scheduled for Queens, because of all the unrelated press attention she’d attract. And, in fact, she stayed away.
Meanwhile, Paul is reportedly planning to expand his $20 million Manhattan townhouse by another floor. Workmen have already gutted the building.
“All the valuable furniture and memorabilia is in storage, but a lot has been thrown out,” The Sun of London reported.
Additional Reporting by Julia Dahl.