JOIN USPaul McCartney to marry for third time
The London-based spokesman for the former Beatle confirmed on Friday that McCartney and Shevell were engaged, but declined to give further details.
“It’s true!,” said spokesman Stuart Bell, after People magazine broke news of the engagement.
Shevell, 51, who is divorced, and the notoriously private McCartney, 68, are reported to have begun dating about four years ago, following the Fab Four singer’s bitter split with second wife, model Heather Mills.
They have been seen together frequently at celebrity events and on McCartney’s tours, and most recently posed for photos at a gala evening on Monday at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. A photo is displayed prominently on McCartney’s official website. American celebrity magazine Us Weekly reported on Friday that the “Can’t Buy Me Love” singer popped the question last weekend “during a romantic candleit dinner for two.”
People magazine said McCartney had given Shevell a ring, although she did not appear to be wearing it when the couple posed on the red carpet at Monday’s Museum event. “They have the right chemistry. They’re both cool, chilled out and optimistic,” People magazine quoted a source close to Shevell as saying.
McCartney was happily married for 29 years to American photographer Linda Eastman until her death of breast cancer in 1998. He said at the time that he and Linda had spent just 11 nights apart during their marriage.
Ever the romantic, his second marriage just four years later in 2002 to British ex-model Heather Mills took observers by surprise. The relationship quickly turned sour, ending in divorce in 2008 and an acrimonious legal battle over money. About a year after separating from Mills in 2006, McCartney reportedly met and began dating Shevell, who sits on the board of New York’s transportation authority.
Famously tight-lipped about his personal life, McCartney said in 2008 of their relationship: “I just like being in love.”
Now formally known as Sir Paul McCartney after receiving a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth, he is one of the wealthiest musicians in Britain, with an estimated fortune of 495 million pounds ($811 million), according to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.
McCartney has five children —four from his marriage to Linda Eastman, and one from his brief union with Mills. Shevell has a teenage daughter.