Is Heather Mills cheating?

The promotion for Dancing with The Stars makes it clear that one celebrity comes to the dance floor with a tremendous handicap. But three weeks into the competition, many are saying that the combination of judges' sympathy and state-of-the-art bionic prosthetics are giving the one-legged, Beatle-fleecing porn model-turned- "charity campaigner" Heather Mills an unfair leg up on the competition. (Apologies for the "leg up" pun).

Mills, a hated figure in Britain because of her ugly divorce battle with the beloved Paul McCartney, is using the show to rehabilitate her image and perhaps begin a Sarah Ferguson-like career in the States. From the beginning, she's played along with the producers' crass promotion, expressing fears that her fake leg will fly off on live television, and playing up her disability by walking down the stage stairway like Jerry Lewis in Cinderfella.

Yet, for two weeks in a row, she's executed superfluous backflips during her dance routines, landing hard on the prosthetic and rebounding like the Son of Flubber. The controversial secret was revealed in the video package that preceded her dance.

Mills was shown stumbling and fumbling in rehearsals, and complaining that she'd be unable to dance "The Jive" because "You try and hop on a leg that's like concrete and the other leg bounces up and down like a trampoline."

But then she said she'd "go and see the "prosthestist" for relief.

Her words came as a jolt, since Mills, who's been accused of being a former call girl, pronounced the word "PROS-the-thist," leaving the impression she was going to visit some hookers.

No such luck.

She was next shown being fitted with a new, "special" leg that, after adjustments and tightening, allowed her to dance and bounce with ease.

That, combined with a second show-offy cartwheel, was enough to win more sympathy points from the judges and put her in a four-way tie for first place with Joey Fatone, Ian Ziering and Leeza Gibbons. Judge Bruno Tonioli called her "the incredible Heather Mills": "One, two, three legs, I don't care how many-- you did a fantastic job."

Reports say Mills paid for the special leg herself. There is no indication that show producers examined it. Is this the equivalent of a corked bat in baseball? Or worse--steroids?