Jemima Khan

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 the late 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. She has two younger brothers, Zac and Ben Goldsmith, five paternal half-siblings, and three maternal half-siblings, including Robin and India Jane Birley.

Khan grew up at Ormeley Lodge while attending the Old Vicarage preparatory school and Francis Holland School in Chelsea. She studied at the University of Bristol from 1993 to 1995, when she dropped out to get married but eventually submitted her dissertation in March 2002 for a 2:1 bachelor's degree in English. She later completed an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS, University of London. Khan is almost universally reported to be shy, with her ex-husband describing her as "very shy". She is defined as modest, stylish, and levelheaded. She has described herself as a lifelong "coward" who is diffident due to "a chronic inability to make up my mind" and has built a pattern of "pathological indecision".

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. Her mother later stated, "Jemima was frightened of flying even before the incident; she's petrified [now]". Khan lives in Fulham, London, with her sons Sulaiman Isa (b. 18 November 1996) and Kasim (b. 10 April 1999). Because she wants to have the same last name as her children, she currently goes by Jemima Khan.

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. The religious ceremony was followed, on 21 June, by a civil ceremony at the Richmond Register Office and a midsummer ball at Ormeley Lodge. Guests at the ball included Princess Michael of Kent, Elle MacPherson, David Frost, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Michael Parkinson, and Jerry Hall. Raised a Protestant, Khan converted to Islam by taking the name Haiqa a few months before her wedding. She claimed to have based her conversion on the writings of Muhammad Asad, Gai Eaton, and Alija Izetbegović. Khan has never used or been identified by her Islamic name.

The couple settled in Lahore, Pakistan, where Khan learned to speak Urdu and wore traditional Pakistani clothes. In 1999, in an accusation widely believed to be politically motivated, Khan was charged in Pakistan with the non-bailable crime of illegally exporting hundreds of tiles claimed to be centuries-old antiques of the Islamic era. She stayed with her mother in England due to the fear of incarceration, and only returned to Pakistan a year later when the case was dropped following General Pervez Musharraf's military coup.

While married to Imran, Khan spent four months each year and her pregnancies in England, referred to her mother's residence as the place she considered home, and gave birth to her sons at London's Portland hospital. She returned to UK full-time during Christmas 2002. She later recalled that, "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... Certainly, I couldn’t make a change like that now." After 18 months of living separately and due to Khan's inability to settle in Pakistan, on 22 June 2004, Imran Khan released the following statement:

I sadly announce that Jemima and I are divorced. Whilst Jemima tried her best to settle here, my political life made it difficult for her to adapt to life in Pakistan. This was a mutual decision and is clearly very sad for both of us. My home and my future is in Pakistan."

Relationship with Hugh Grant

Starting in 2004, Khan was involved in a high-profile relationship with movie star Hugh Grant, gaining a new level of fame as his girlfriend. A 2005 article in the Evening Standard magazine noted that while "Jemima's profile" was high since she married a Muslim man and moved to Pakistan, it was "soaring since she became involved with Hugh Grant". Between 2004 and 2007, Khan accompanied Grant on the red carpet at the London and New York premieres of his movie Music and Lyrics and to other social events. As he is followed relentlessly by the paparazzi and featured in print and television media worldwide, Grant's relationship with Khan was high-profile. 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.

Grant refused to talk about the relationship in interviews and did not respond to tabloid and other media speculation. Khan was also asked about their rumoured marriage during a UNICEF campaign in 2005, but she only said, "I don't think I am any good at interviews and I am particularly hopeless when I am asked personal questions." During the world premiere of Music and Lyrics in London, which was also attended by Khan's mother and several family members, Grant dispelled all rumours of an imminent wedding by declaring to an interviewer:

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.

After three years together, in February 2007, Grant announced that the couple had "decided to split amicably". Grant's spokesman added: "Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima." Since then, there have been many unsubstantiated reports about Grant's relationship with Khan because they have been spotted together. Neither Grant nor Khan have directly talked about their relationship and its breakdown to the press. Khan remains best known to much of the public for her highly-publicized relationship with Grant.

Charity and other works

Khan and her family often support London-based charities by attending society parties in their aid. Like her sister-in-law Sheherazade Goldsmith, Khan regularly supports the Soil Association, an environmental charity, and the HOPING foundation, which works with Palestinian refugee children. She is also a member of the children's charity, Chain of Hope.

Khan became a UK Ambassador for UNICEF in September 2001 and has been on field trips to Kenya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. She has helped raise awareness about UNICEF's Breastfeeding Manifesto and End Child Exploitation campaign, including the issues of child trafficking and child labour. In 2001, she raised funds to help refugees of the Afghan civil war in Pakistan. She also participated, with her mother and sons, in two demonstrations outside Downing Street in November 2007 against the imposition of a state of emergency in Pakistan. Khan has written columns about her experience in Pakistan for newspapers such as The Independent, The Guardian and The Times. From 21 October 2007 to 27 January 2008, she contributed 11 opinion comments to The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.

In 1998, Khan launched a non-profit clothing company that employed poor Pakistani women to embroider western clothes with delicate eastern handiwork, which were then sold under the label of Jemima Khan Designs in London and New York at outlets such as Mimi, The Cross, and Browns. Khan stated that all profits were donated to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital. At the end of 2001, after producing three collections, her fashion label was closed. In 2008, she modeled the relaunched Azzaro Courture fragrance and was a guest co-designer of a small accessories collection with Azzaro's Vanessa Seward. As voted for by the readers of the Daily Telegraph, she was presented the Rover People's Award for the best dressed female celebrity at the 2001 British Fashion Awards. Khan was featured on Vanity Fair's Annual International Best-Dressed List in 2004, 2005 and 2007.

References

External links

• Jemima Khan, UNICEF UK Ambassador, official account of UNICEF activities
• The politics of paranoia, commentary on the 2008 Pakistani elections by Khan
• Why I chose Islam, Khan's 1995 editorial explaining her conversion to Islam