Figure of hatred or hard-working, disabled charity champion? Viv Hardwick reports on Heather Mills attempt to try and win TV’s Dancing on Ice.

SO now we know, Heather Mills is attempting to win ITV1’s Dancing On Ice on one leg… while worrying if her reputation as one of the UK’s most hated celebrity women will see her flat on her face after being booted off on Sunday’s opening night.

The 41-year-old ex-wife of Sir Paul McCartney, who is more famous for her rants than her reason, sees the popular ice dance contest as a way of winning over the British public and media.

That’s going to be as tough as the upbringing in Washington, Tyne and Wear, for the mother of six-year-old Beatrice, because the potential 11m viewers are fully aware of public surveys which put the woman nicknamed “Mucca” on a par with Amy Winehouse, Victoria Beckham and Kerry Katona.

You’d have thought that ITV would have learned its lesson about signing up reality show personalities addicted to ever more damaging self-publicity. But a few short weeks after Katy “Jordan”

Price slunk away from I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, the derided Mills, sweeps out of the gloom and into another major reality TV event.

Her descent into an object of hatred followed a series of bizarre outbursts before and after her bitter 2008 divorce… and some colourful revelations about her previous life.

The bookies aren’t optimistic and put Mills as a 25-1 outsider in the 14- celebrity event which opens on Sunday and she’s been reduced to begging for votes on her website and Twitter link.

Once again her prosthetic limb on the part of her left leg she lost in a road accident in 1993 has surfaced as a controversial way of seeking public sympathy, as it was supposed to have done during the divorce case.

A flare-up with a national newspaper resulted when she said she might quit Dancing On Ice because she was “suffering a lot of pain” in rehearsals.

Now Mills says that she and dance partner Matt Evers are working on a routine which involves her dancing on her good leg.

“All amputees know one day you can walk fine, another day you get a blister and you can’t get your (false) leg on. If that happens a day or two before the show we will have to have a back-up routine where we do loads of throws and things,” she’s quoted as saying.

Mills is using specially-made synthetic boots and says she went out to the US to train after failing to find any advice for amputee ice skaters in the UK. She also claims that a catalogue of injuries during training includes cracking two ribs, damaging her shoulder and aggravating an old hip injury made her fear she’d end up in a wheelchair if she damaged her right leg.

“I’m not a quitter and I’m so used to injury in my life. I suppose I’m holding back a bit now in that I’m being sensible, but I hope I’m doing enough to impress the judges and get the public support,” she says.

Mills first attempt to re-build her reputation came in 2007 when she took part in the US series Dancing With The Stars and went out in the sixth round.

Having interviewed Mills in 2000, around the time she met Sir Paul, when she unsuccessfully launched a career as a TV presenter, I can confirm she had anxieties about her finances, particularly as she was constantly fundraising for her trust which provides limbs for amputees and the disabled.

There is talk that her Dancing On Ice fee of about £50,000 is being donated to charity.

As it is, the ex-Mrs McCartney is now said to be worth £24.3m with two homes in Sussex and a far cry from the child who played truant from Washington schools to go shoplifting and drinking.

Back then she said: “My mother left us when I was nine and I became the boss of the family. I had to learn to cook and clean and do everything as well as look after my younger sister and my older brother “So I had to become independent very quickly when my mum left. I just got on with it. It was totally different from other people’s childhoods.”

She did not get on with her father and eventually moved to be with her mother who was living with a new partner in the south of England – but that didn’t work out either.

“I left home when I was 13 and went to live with a travelling fair. In the eyes of an average, everyday person I have had a pretty crazy childhood, but in my eyes it was just a matter of dealing with everything that happened.

“I became homeless at that age and lived under Waterloo Arches (in London) and everyone is like ‘how could that have happened?’ But that was the happiest time of my life. I would never encourage kids to go and do it, but I had a very violent abusive father and my mother had left home, so I had to go.”

So who is the controversial Mills up against? Superstar skating duo Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have taken on the highest number of celebrity skaters so far. The contestants are: Inbetweeners actress Emily Atack (who, ironically, is the daughter of Sir Paul’s cousin); Olympic swimmer and presenter Sharron Davies; comedian Bobby Davro; Boyzone’s Mikey Graham; GMTV’s Dr Hilary Jones; actor Gary Lucy; author Tana Ramsay; Hollyoaks actor Kieron Richards; actor Jeremy Sheffield; singer and presenter Sinitta; actress Hayley Tamaddon, actress Danniella Westbrook and ex-Coronation Street actor Danny Young.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby will be rinkside to present the live series. There will be a new face on the judging panel as Emma Bunton joins Robin Cousins, Karen Barber, Jason Gardiner and Nicky Slater.

And just think, even if you don’t fancy voting for Heather Mills, there’s every chance you can still catch her as one of the contestants on the Dancing On Ice tour which comes to the MetroRadio Arena on April 13-14.

Tickets: £32.50, £40 and £55. Box Office: 0844-493-6666.

Personally, I can see the world’s most vulnerable vegan surviving for the first few weeks thanks to the good old British public’s support for the underdog, if we’re being charitable, and plain old freak show appeal, if we’re not.

■ Dancing On Ice, preview, tomorrow at 9pm when reigning champion Ray Quinn returns to perform a duet with partner Maria Filippov and the 2010 contestants are introduced

■ Dancing On Ice, Sunday, 6.45pm, the 14 celebrities in competition followed by The Skate Off at 9.30pm with two couples with the least support aiming to avoid being first to leave.