Who broke Imran Khan’s heart?

His overpowering sex-appeal blends seamlessly with the Casanova stories from the past, so much so that when the former Pakistani skipper-turned-politician Imran Khan confesses to ‘having lost the will to live’, it’s a little hard to digest.

But you better believe it as Imran has reportedly given a personal account of the six months leading up to the divorce with former wife Jemima Goldsmith and six months after it being ‘the hardest year of his life’  in his book, Pakistan – A Personal History, which is the talk of the international press at present. Not only did he see his marriage disintegrate, but not being able to see his sons — Sulaiman and Kasim — made it even worse.

“I loved fatherhood more than anything I had ever experienced in life...now not having them around was the hardest thing to come to terms with,” he’s reported to have written. “For the first time I began to understand how people could lose the will to live,” he adds.

His marriage to Jemima Goldsmith in 1995 was much talked about for the obvious age difference as he was 43, while his young wife was only 19, came from a different religion and a culture that was not as conservative as his. He rued the fact that his taking to politics kept him away from his family and that Jemima had to face the brunt of it. “Hard for anyone, this kind of treatment was particularly distressing for somebody like Jemima, who was naturally shy and sensitive,” he’s quoted by international papers.

However, the cricketer is also quoted to have said that there was no acrimony during the divorce in 2004, and that his sons visit him in Pakistan during their school holidays, while he stays with his former mother-in-law Lady Annabel Goldsmith when he travels to London.

Following the divorce, Jemima continues to keep her marital surname Khan, is a human rights activist and has been associated with many charity works. She was also strongly linked to actor Hugh Grant.