Heather Mills has reportedly played a tape to journalists of Paul McCartney admitting to hitting his late wife, Linda McCartney.

Heather is said to have played the audio recording in an off-camera moment during her various interviews on TV and radio yesterday and a witness in the room told the Mirror: “It was quite extraordinary. There were raised voices. Heather and Paul were shouting. Paul can be heard confessing he hit Linda ‘once or twice’.

“No one knew what to do. It was astonishing stuff and seemed to back up Heather’s claim that she’s the victim in all of this.”

Heather started out on GMTV yesterday, comparing her treatment in the media to that of paedophiles and admitted she had considered killing herself to protect her daughter with the former Beatle, Beatrice.

Heather also elaborated on the death threats she received earlier in the year, and added that “a box of evidence” including her diaries and the tapes “is going to a certain person if anything happens to me. So if you top me off, it’s going to that person.”

Later in the day, she went onto give similarly fraught interviews to This Morning as well as the BBC’s Radio Five Live, News 24 and Six O’Clock News, promoting suggestions that she is having a nervous breakdown.

Her publicist Phil Hall is said to have quit after she conducted the interviews against his advice. The former News of the World editor told the Sun: “My advice to her for the past 18 months has been, ‘keep your head down and let’s wait until the divorce is over, and then rebuild your career afterwards’ through the charity and foundations she works for.”

“That’s the way it was going. We’ve had very few conversations with newspapers as far as placing any stories are concerned apart from denying the more extreme stuff.”

A source close to Paul added Paul is more concerned for Heather at the moment than for his own reputation: “Like everyone else, he can’t quite believe what’s happened. Heather is clearly disturbed and in a highly agitated state. His major concern is for their daughter.”

Heather Mills' interview rants and confessions:
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