Heather Mills said she would take a turn on Dancing On Ice to prove to her six-year-old daughter she was not a “disabled mum that can’t do anything”.

But Mills stands accused of trying to draw on viewers’ sympathy ahead of her Dancing On Ice turn. The UK Mirror reports Mills got off to a not-so-flying start by listing off a check list of her woes. Mills, the ex-wife of Sir Paul McCartney, lost a leg in a 1993 motorcycle accident which makes her entry into the reality talent show not only remarkable but a sure viewer-draw. The Mirror, however, claimed she was already reaching for the sympathy vote.

Mills, 41, compared herself to the Bionic Woman for taking part in Dancing On Ice when she started training for the first show, the paper reports.

She said: “I’ve snapped off my rib doing a lift, I had eight lessons and was flat on my back for 10 days after a fall, and I nearly had to drop out. I fractured a rib, tore my rotator cuff, then shifted out my pelvis. There is not much left to break. My doctor thought it was ridiculous and said: ‘I think you should pull out.’ Then I woke up and thought, ‘I’m doing this for charity,’ and I saw my boots and sparkly catsuits and thought, ‘I’ve got to do this’.”

Mills is the patron of the Hunts Point Alliance charity which helps impoverished children in The Bronx, New York.