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Jemima Khan extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Jemima Marcelle Khan (born 30 January 1974) is best known as a former girlfriend of Hugh Grant and ex-wife of Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan, with whom she had two sons in the 1990s. An English socialite and writer, Khan is the daughter of Lady Annabel and James Goldsmith.

Contents 1 Family and education 2 Islamic marriage 3 Relationship with Hugh Grant 4 Charity and other work 5 References 6 External links

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 She has two younger brothers, Zac, husband of Sheherazade Goldsmith, and Ben, as well as five paternal and three maternal half-siblings, including Robin and India Jane Birley.² She has two sons, Sulaiman Isa (born 1996) and Kasim (born 1999), 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 class 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 on a British Airways jet to Kenya that was temporarily knocked off course and dived thousands of feet, 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 retired 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, while her husband pursued politics, 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 could not 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 work

Khan is a supporter of Soil Association,³⁰ the Quilliam Foundation, and children's charities like HOPING foundation.³¹ In 1998, she launched an eponymous fashion label that employed poor Pakistani women to embroider western clothes with eastern handiwork³² to be sold in London and New York.³³³⁴ Profits were donated to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital but the company was closed in 2001.³⁴ In 2008, she modeled the relaunched Azzaro Courture fragrance and was a guest co-designer of a Spring 2009 collection for Azzaro, with her fee reportedly donated to UNICEF.³⁵³⁶ 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.³³ Khan was featured on Vanity Fair's Annual International Best-Dressed List in 2004, 2005 and 2007.³⁷

Khan became an Ambassador for UNICEF UK 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,³⁸ Growing Up Alone³⁹ and End Child Exploitation campaigns in UK.⁴⁰⁴¹ 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.⁴²⁴³ In 2007, Khan and her family participated in three demonstrations outside Downing Street to protest the state of emergency in Pakistan, during which her ex-husband was incarcerated.⁴⁴ Khan has contributed writings, including an interview with Pervez Musharraf,⁴⁵ to England's newspapers and Vogue UK.⁴⁶⁴⁷⁴⁸ She was a Sunday Telegraph columnist from 21 October 2007 to 27 January 2008.⁴⁹

References

External links

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