Absolutely Fabulous – Michele Elyzabeth rejoins Heather Mills
So Heather Mills has a new PR ubermouth. It was reported yesterday that she has hired a self-styled French aristocrat and beauty salon owner Michele Elyzabeth as her “official worldwide spokesperson”. She is said to originate from France and started her career with Rogers and Cowan in the Seventies. Sir Paul McCartney’s estranged wife dumped her lawyers Mishcon de Reya and former media spokesman Phil Hall last week, after going off her trolley in a series of TV interviews. Comtesse Michele Elyzabeth, whom Paul is said to loathe, described herself as one of Mills’ closest friends. May I suggest that this is another example of the cultural and social divide that existed between the estranged couple? Ms Elyzabeth has worked for Heather in the past. She was retained despite telling US TV show Extra that her client had received a court order granting full custody of daughter Beatrice. Here are some of Ms Elyzabeth best quotes.
“Heather’s got better things to do than worry about her PR. The only thing she’s worried about is doing a good job (on Dancing with the Stars). That’s her concentration.”
She told the Mail on Sunday: “I have immense respect for Heather and her work. She is sick, sick, sick of all the negative publicity. I am on my way to dinner now and have to go.”
It all seems a little Absolutely Fabulous and I am not sure it does the PR profession any favours. She first stepped into the limelight when she went on the US TV show Extra, where she made the custody pronouncement a crude attempt to clear up the that Heather was a gold-digger, this vignette brought her lots of personal publicity. She was retained despite telling the show that her client had received a court order granting full custody of daughter Beatrice.
Her accent became a subject of derision on a You Tube clip and she was ridiculed on the comedy show The Soup – on which she appeared live to throw a glass of her own rose champagne at the show host.
Watch it
It seems that Michele Elyzabeth is another PR cliché that defines a genre of PR that I loathe. The McCartney Mills PR hostilities that have bewitched the media are gradually forcing certain quarters of the industry into a dank corner. The best in practice should be facing each other head to head. Instead we watch the retarded dribbling of an operator that should be currying journalist favour on a junket to a French Château.
Welcoming back a former PR advisor isn’t always a good idea especially when they have failed to impress the media in the past. I doubt that she has the talent or dexterity to turn Heather affairs around. But even if she doesn’t her fame is guaranteed expect Michele Elyzabeth to appear on the next series of I’m A Celebrity.