Jemima: 'I can't go on like this'

12 April 2012

Hugh Grant was last night battling to save his relationship with Jemima Khan after reports that their romance was in turmoil.

Miss Khan, 32, is said to be distraught at spending increasing amounts of time apart from the actor because he is filming in America.

She is also understood to be 'sick' of his reluctance to settle down - saying he is just like the bachelor character he played in About A Boy.

The couple had a showdown when she phoned the New York hotel where Grant, 45, has been staying during the filming of the movie Music And Lyrics By. Miss Khan told him: 'I can't go on living like this.'

It was the latest episode in a string of rows about his failure to commit and
his continuing closeness to exgirlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley.

A friend of the couple said: 'It's very sad. They are apart and this really looks as if it could be the end. Jemima's had enough of Hugh not committing.

'She can only put up with so much. She still loves him but he's just like the ageing bachelor character he played in About A Boy. Her patience is running out. He is mad to treat a stunning, wonderful woman this way.'

The friend added that Miss Khan felt she has been pushed away for the last time - and that this time she will not be running back to him.

The couple have also abandoned plans to live together in the £18million home in Chelsea that Miss Khan has just bought.

A friend of the couple say there is now 'virtually no chance' of them turning their relationship into marriage.

Whenever they are together, say friends, they spend most of their time arguing.

The biggest bone of contention is said to be the actor's 'selfishness' and his
'morbid fear' of commitment. Another source said that Grant found it hard to connect with Miss Khan's two children from her previous marriage to the cricketer Imran Khan, Sulaiman, eight, and six-year-old Kasim.

Another problem, it seems, is what Miss Khan feels are her responsibilities as the heiress to the £23million fortune of her father Sir James Goldsmith.

A friend said: 'Jemima is very interested in issues such as alleviating child poverty in developing countries. That could be seen the other night at a charity auction when she bid £50,000 to kiss Kate Moss.

'It was an ostentatious display and a bit of fun - but there was a serious cause behind it. It was in aid of the Hoping Foundation for Palestinian refugee children.

'Hugh can't really be bothered getting involved with such charities. He is
much more interested in nurturing his property empire.'

Grant recently admitted he had invested the millions he has made from films in property, in the hope that it will earn him so much money in the future that he will never have to work again.

He said: 'I keep buying places and deciding they are not very nice and then buying other places. I now own about 17 houses in London, all of them horrible and all of them very badly decorated. I seem to have no flair for it whatsoever.'

He also spoke wistfully of returning to the kind of bohemian lifestyle he had at university - hardly the words of a man who wants to settle down.

He said: 'I want to return to Italy. I adore Italy. I live for Italy. When I was between school and university, I travelled everywhere: Venice, Pisa, Florence, Rome - I miss that life.'

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