Heather Mills gets the boot

Less than a week after Sanjaya Malakar was eliminated mysteriously from American Idol, one-legged "charity campaigner," former porn model, Paul McCartney exploiter and British pariah Heather Mills was sent hopping from Dancing with The Stars, leaving most Americans confused about who she is or why she was on the show for any thing other than freak show value.

Paul McCartney's estranged second wife, who entered his life as he mourned the death of his longtime mate Linda, and entered the competition as a way of rehabilitating her image in the wake of overwhelmingly negative press in the UK surrounding her divorce demands, was constantly hyped in Dancing as the disabled, handicapped, one-legged "charity campaigner." But her performances were marked by superhuman vaults, cartwheels and flips, were made possible by a series of Flubber-like state-of-the-art bionic prosthetic legs that some said gave her an unfair advantage over the other contestants.

Despite that her scores remained low in the past two weeks (Dancing rates contestants on a slippery mix of viewer votes and judges' calls) and she was booted last night.

In an ironic twist, Mills, who is known in the UK for being less than charitable to the "little people" who work for her, pulled out a prepared speech and thanked hairstylists and others who helped her in the past weeks. She claimed her stint on the show helped the animal activist cause, and as a hurried footnote, urged viewers to "go vegan"on Mondays (Dancing's night). That final word may have been a stab at McCartney, whose first wife Linda was the world's foremost vegan activist, and whose upcoming album reportedly contains not only a loving tribute to Linda but a few jabs at his high-maintenance trophy wife.

Throughout her stay on Dancing, Mills was feted with hagiographic tributes and neither McCartney nor her controversial past were ever mentioned. Infotainment shows like Extra! cooperated in providing slobbering selected coverage in an implicit deal to help Mills get a Stateside TV gig. It's unclear whether the ploy backfired.

Now for the conspiracy part...

Now that Heather and her collection of special legs has cleared out of Television City, will Paul McCartney show up on the rival Idol event, which is doing some real charity campaigning this week?

Macca had been rumoured to be a guest mentor on Idol this season. He reportedly backed out of appearing on British Invasion night (and was replaced by the equally legendaryand influential Peter Noone and Lulu) because of Mills' Dancing styint. Should McCartney appear on tonight's Idol Gives Back charity event, we'll be convinced that that everything is connected.