Heather Mills knocked out of TV dancing contest

By Belinda Goldsmith

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Heather Mills, the estranged wife of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, was voted off the hit television show "Dancing with the Stars" on Tuesday after winning widespread praise for performing with an artificial leg.

Mills, 39, and partner Jonathan Roberts made it to the sixth week of the ABC network's knock-out competition which pairs celebrities with professional dancers, but a tumble on the dance floor last week had put them in the bottom two.

The show's three judges ranked Mills and Roberts fifth in the list of seven remaining pairs this week but a public vote, which counts for half of the rankings, went against them.

Mills said she was not surprised to be voted off and even had a farewell speech on a piece of paper tucked inside her black, two-piece outfit.

"We knew we were going out," said Mills, who went on to thank her partner, the crew working on the show, and to urge people to become vegans.

She said the public response in the United States to her participation had "been overwhelming."

Mills was scheduled to discuss her experience on ABC's late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Show," but did not appear. "She hates America," Kimmel joked. A spokesman for Mills was not available to explain her absence.

The former model turned social activist, who lost her left leg below the knee in a 1993 traffic accident, has said she joined the contest to show you can overcome any disability but also to overcome the negative publicity about her that was damaging efforts to raise funds for her land mine and animal rights charities.

In Britain, Mills has been vilified by the British press over her bitter divorce from McCartney.

Mills separated from McCartney last year in what has grown into a highly publicized and increasingly nasty divorce, as Britain's tabloid newspapers portrayed her as a gold-digger seeking to cash in on the beloved former Beatle's fortune.

Her participation in the fourth season of "Dancing with the Stars" has proved a big ratings draw for the program with nearly 22 million viewers tuning in at one stage to watch her fox-trotting across the floor, the first contestant to compete with an artificial leg.

Other celebrity contestants remaining in the show include world female boxing champion Laila Ali (daughter of Muhammad Ali), country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, former 'N Sync boy-band member Joey Fatone and Olympic speed-skater Apolo Anton Ohno.

ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co.