Jemima Khan Biography

Jemima Marcelle Khan (born 30 January 1974) is a former girlfriend of Hugh Grant and the ex-wife of Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan. An English socialite, Khan is a daughter of Lady Annabel Goldsmith and one of the eight children who inherited the wealth of her late father, billionaire James Goldsmith.

Family and education

Born in London's Westminster Hospital as Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith, Khan is the eldest child of Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart and Anglo-French financier James Goldsmith. Her parents started a polyamorous relationship in 1964 while they were married to different partners, but in 1978, the two married for the sole purpose of legitimizing their children.¹ Besides her two younger brothers, Zac, husband of Sheherazade Goldsmith, and Ben, Khan has five paternal and three maternal half-siblings, including Robin and India Jane Birley.² She has two sons, Sulaiman Isa and Kasim, and because she wants to have the same last name as her children, she currently goes by Jemima Khan.³

Khan grew up at Ormeley Lodge while attending the Old Vicarage preparatory school and Francis Holland School. Between the ages of ten and seventeen, she was an accomplished equestrian in London.¹ Khan enrolled at the University of Bristol in 1993 and dropped out to get married in 1995, but eventually submitted her dissertation in March 2002 for a 2:1 bachelor's degree in English.⁴ She later completed an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS, University of London, majoring in Modern Trends in Islam.⁵

Khan is known to be shy,⁶⁷ with her ex-husband describing her as "very shy".⁸ She is modest, stylish, and levelheaded.⁹¹⁰ She calls herself a "lifelong coward"¹¹ who has a "a chronic inability to make up my mind".¹² On 29 December 2000, Khan and her family were part of a British Airways jet to Kenya that was temporarily knocked off course and dived 17,000 feet below, after a passenger tried to seize controls in the cockpit.¹³ Her mother later said, "Jemima was frightened of flying even before the incident; she's petrified [now]".¹⁴

Islamic Marriage

At 21, Jemima Goldsmith married the 42-year old Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan on 16 May 1995 in a two-minute Islamic ceremony in Paris.¹⁵ The couple later participated in a civil ceremony on 21 June at the Richmond Register Office,¹⁶ which was followed by a midsummer ball at Ormeley Lodge.¹⁷ Upon her marriage and subsequent move to Lahore, Khan underwent what she later called a reinvention.¹⁸ Raised a Protestant,⁴ she converted to Islam a few months before her wedding,² citing the writings of Muhammad Asad, Gai Eaton, and Alija Izetbegović as her influences.¹⁹ She also learned to speak Urdu and wore traditional Pakistani clothes. In 2008, she wrote about regretting the fact that she "over conformed in [her] eagerness to be accepted" into "a new and radically different culture" of Pakistan.¹⁸

While married, Khan and Imran spent four months each year in UK and she gave birth to her sons at London's Portland hospital.⁶ In 1999, in an accusation believed to be politically motivated, Khan was charged in Pakistan with the non-bailable crime of illegally exporting tiles claimed to be centuries-old antiques of the Islamic era. She stayed with her mother for a year due to fear of incarceration²⁰ and returned to Pakistan only after the case was dropped following General Pervez Musharraf's military coup.²¹ She returned to UK full-time in 2002. After Khan decided that she couldn't settle in Pakistan, her divorce from Imran Khan was announced on 22 June 2004.²² She later recalled, "I now think, my God, I mean, how did I live five years with Imran’s whole family, who I was very close to? I mean, I really liked and respected them, but obviously, they lived very, very differently."²³

Relationship with Hugh Grant

In 2004, Khan became involved in a romantic relationship with movie star Hugh Grant. She initially put her studies at SOAS on hold for the relationship and gained a new level of fame during the three years she and Grant were partners. A 2005 article in the Evening Standard magazine noted that while "Jemima's profile" was high since her first marriage, it was "soaring since she became involved with Hugh Grant".²⁴ As he is followed relentlessly by the paparazzi and featured in print and television media worldwide, Grant's relationship with Khan was scrutinized extensively by the tabloids.²³ A survey of visitors to London in 2005 showed that Grant and Khan were the couple with whom a majority of visitors wanted to travel the city.²⁵ Grant refused to talk about the relationship in interviews and did not respond to tabloid and other media speculation. In 2005, when asked about the couple's plans to marry, Khan said, "I don't think I am any good at interviews and I am particularly hopeless when I am asked personal questions."²⁶

In 2007, Khan accompanied Grant on the red carpet at the London and New York premieres of his movie Music and Lyrics. During the London world premiere of the film in February, which was also attended by Khan's mother and several family members, Grant stated, "People shouldn't believe what they hear. I am not marrying her. I've read and heard we are going to, but there is no truth to it."²⁷ After three years of the high profile romance, in February 2007, Grant announced that the couple had "decided to split amicably".²⁸ Grant's spokesman added: "Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima." Since then, there have been many unsubstantiated reports and speculation about the former couple because they have been publicly pictured together on several occasions.²⁹ Neither Grant nor Khan have directly talked about their relationship and its breakdown to the press.

Charity and other works

Khan is a supporter of Soil Association,³⁰ the Quilliam Foundation, and children's charities like HOPING foundation³¹ and Chain of Hope.³² In 1998, she launched an eponymous fashion label that employed poor Pakistani women to embroider western clothes with delicate eastern handiwork³³ to be sold in London and New York.³⁴³⁵ Profits were donated to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital but the company was closed in 2001.³⁵ In 2008, she modeled the relaunched Azzaro Courture fragrance and was a guest co-designer of a Spring 2009 accessories collection for Azzaro, with her fee reportedly donated to UNICEF.³⁶³⁷ As voted by readers of the Daily Telegraph, she won the Rover People's Award for the best dressed female celebrity at the 2001 British Fashion Awards.³⁴ Khan was featured on Vanity Fair's Annual International Best-Dressed List in 2004, 2005 and 2007.³⁸

Khan became a UK Ambassador for UNICEF in 2001 and went on field trips to Kenya, Romania, Bangladesh and Pakistan, where she helped victims of the 2005 earthquake by raising emergency funds. She has promoted UNICEF's Breastfeeding Manifesto,³⁹ Growing Up Alone⁴⁰ and End Child Exploitation campaigns in UK.⁴¹⁴² In 2001, she set up the Jemima Khan Afghan Refugee Appeal to provide tents, clothing, food, and healthcare for Afghan refugees at Jalozai camp in Peshawar.⁴³⁴⁴ In November 2007, Khan helped organize and participated, along with her family, in three demonstrations outside Downing Street to protest the incarceration of her ex-husband and the state of emergency in Pakistan.⁴⁵ Khan has been a contributing editor to Vogue UK and has written for England's newspapers.⁴⁶⁴⁷⁴⁸ She interviewed President Pervez Musharraf in 2007,⁴⁹ and was a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph from 21 October 2007 to 27 January 2008.⁵⁰.

References

External links

• Jemima Khan, UNICEF UK Ambassador, official homepage at UNICEF.org.uk