Jemima Goldsmith wishes she had an ‘arranged marriage’ after string of ‘heartache’

Jemima Goldsmith has claimed she wishes she had an arranged marriage instead of going through “a lot of heartache and headaches” with her previous relationships.

The filmmaker, who is currently promoting her new romantic comedy What’s Love Got To Do With It? in Australia, told broadcasters that she saw a number of arranged marriages play out when she lived in Pakistan with her ex-husband Imran Khan.

Goldsmith, 48, married the cricketer and politician at the age of 21 in 1995 and had two children with him. The pair divorced in 2004.

“Frankly speaking personally, [arranged marriage] could have saved me a lot of heartache and headaches if I’d just had someone to sort it out for me,” she said, although she admitted she was “someone who did the absolute opposite”.

The eldest child of Lady Annabel Goldsmith and financier Sir James Goldsmith, the film producer said the idea for her latest movie came after speaking to friends about who their parents would choose for them if they were to have arranged marriages.

“If you had sane, functional parents who would agree – which I don’t – who would they choose for you and would it work?” she explained.

Goldsmith added that, during her time living with Khan’s family in Pakistan, she had the opportunity to see arranged marriages “up close”.

“Some of them were – to me, with my preconceptions – surprisingly happy and successful,” she said. “There’s a lot to be said for simmer then boil.”

Writing for The Independent in 2011 in response to the release of Khan’s memoir Pakistan: A Personal History, Goldsmith said that she remains on “very good terms” with her ex-husband, who “even uses my mother’s house as a London base when he’s in the UK”.

Goldsmith has been previously romantically linked to Hugh Grant and Russell Brand. Following her split from Grant after two years of dating, the actor’s publicist said: “Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima.”

Before her career as a filmmaker, Goldsmith wrote for numerous newspapers and magazines in the UK. She was also a contributing editor at British Vogue, European editor-at-large at Vanity Fair, associate editor at The Independent, and associate editor at the New Statesman.