When Jemima Goldsmith moved to Lahore at 21, she joined a household of 26 people. Among the married couples in the house, she and Imran Khan were the only two who had chosen each other without their families arranging the match. Years later, that detail gave her an idea for a film. What would happen if the person behind the camera knew less about choosing a partner than the friend she was filming?
By then, Goldsmith had worked in fashion, written for British newspapers and helped make documentaries. The comedy she wrote brought those years in Pakistan to a cinema audience under the name she uses for her work, Jemima Khan.
Jemima Goldsmith quick bio
| Detail | Fact |
|---|---|
| Full birth name | Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith |
| Professional name | Jemima Khan |
| Born | 30 January 1974 in London, England |
| Age | 52 in November 2026 |
| Nationality | British, with Pakistani citizenship also recorded |
| Parents | Sir James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Goldsmith |
| Brothers | Zac Goldsmith and Ben Goldsmith |
| Education | English literature at Bristol and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS |
| Husband | Cameron O’Reilly, married in September 2026 |
| Former husband | Imran Khan, married from 1995 to 2004 |
| Children | Sulaiman Khan and Kasim Khan |
| Occupations | Screenwriter, producer and former journalist |
| Company | Instinct Productions |
| Height and weight | Published height estimate of 1.70 metres. Current weight unconfirmed |
| Net worth and salary | No verified figure for either |
Early life in London
Goldsmith grew up near Richmond Park in a family with ties to Britain, France and Ireland. Her father, Sir James, was a financier whose father came from a German Jewish family and whose mother was French. Her mother, Lady Annabel, was the daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry. Jemima was the eldest of their three children. Zac and Ben were her younger brothers. Her wider family includes her maternal half-siblings Robin Birley and India Jane Birley.
She grew up speaking English and later learnt Urdu in Pakistan. She speaks with an English accent, although she has given far more detail in interviews about learning another language than about her own pronunciation. The question of identity mattered most when people made assumptions about her faith. She was brought up as a Protestant and converted to Islam at the time of her first marriage. She has also spoken openly about her Jewish ancestry and the prejudice she faced because of it.
Education and an interest in literature
Goldsmith was studying English at the University of Bristol when she met Imran Khan. Her move to Pakistan interrupted her studies, but she completed her degree. For her work on literature after colonial rule, she studied Salman Rushdie’s novel Shame. She later earned a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS University of London, where her thesis examined modern trends in Islam.
Marriage to Imran Khan and family life in Pakistan
The couple met at a restaurant in Knightsbridge and married in Paris in May 1995. Imran was already a cricket star. His move into politics brought different demands. Jemima accompanied him on the campaign trail and saw how easily a candidate’s family could become part of an election fight. During the 1997 campaign, opponents used her Jewish family background to spread conspiracy theories about her husband.
Domestic life gave her a different view of the country. In Lahore, she lived with Imran’s father, his sisters and their families. She could see what happened after a wedding, when the guests had gone home and a marriage became part of daily life. Those years also gave her a reason to question how British films portrayed Pakistani families. She knew people whose experiences seldom found their way into the romantic comedies she saw.
Her sons and her marriage to Cameron O’Reilly
Jemima and Imran had two sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, before their divorce in June 2004. Imran later served as Pakistan’s prime minister. In March 2026, Jemima appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to help their sons visit their father in prison. She said the brothers had applied for visas in January and were still waiting. In August, she urged the British government to raise concerns about his treatment.
On 12 September 2026, both sons walked their mother down the aisle when she married financier Cameron O’Reilly in England. Photographs she shared after the ceremony showed a strapless Oscar de la Renta wedding dress with a full tulle skirt, a hem above the ankles and a long veil.
A fashion business built on Pakistani embroidery
In 1998, Goldsmith started a clothing label that connected women doing embroidery in Pakistan with customers in London and New York. She commissioned garments in Britain and sent them to Pakistan for the handwork. For mothers who needed paid employment, an order from the label meant an income from a skill they already had. An account in The Independent put the workforce at between 700 and 1,000 women.
The venture also helped fund Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Lahore. Its reliance on overseas shops, however, left it exposed when buyers cancelled orders after the September 2001 attacks in the United States. The label closed. Her later return to fundraising drew on a different resource, the audience for her first feature film.
From newspaper editor to film producer
Goldsmith worked at The Independent before joining the New Statesman as an associate editor in 2011. She had already edited a special issue on freedom of speech. She also became European editor at large for Vanity Fair. A subject that held her attention across newspapers and BBC Radio 4 was the place of arranged marriage in modern Britain.
For that work, she interviewed some 50 men in their thirties who had decided to involve their families in finding a partner. As a journalist, she could ask each man why he had made that choice. As a screenwriter, she had a harder task. She had to give a fictional man reasons strong enough to make sense even when his oldest friend doubted him.
Jemima Goldsmith and Instinct Productions
Goldsmith founded Instinct Productions in London in 2015. Its work ranges from documentary shorts to television drama. Her credits include We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, The Clinton Affair and The Case Against Adnan Syed. She also produced Impeachment: American Crime Story, returning to the Clinton and Lewinsky story through a drama that used actors to portray the people involved.
Another project tested what she was willing to put her name to. Goldsmith had known Diana, Princess of Wales, and helped develop material about her for the fifth series of The Crown. In 2021, she withdrew. She said she wanted the programme to treat her friend’s final years with greater care and asked for her contribution to be removed.
The story behind What’s Love Got to Do with It?
Goldsmith wrote and produced this romantic comedy, directed by Shekhar Kapur. Lily James plays a documentary maker who films a childhood friend, played by Shazad Latif, as his family helps him find a wife. The camera gives her permission to ask him personal questions. It also lets her avoid asking some of the same questions about herself.
The film premiered in Toronto in 2022 and reached British cinemas in February 2023. It won Best Comedy at the Rome Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the National Film Awards. Goldsmith went on to produce the podcast A Muslim & A Jew Go There, hosted by Sayeeda Warsi and David Baddiel. Her later executive producer credits include The Bibi Files and The Voice of Hind Rajab, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2025.
Net worth, salary and sources of income
Jemima Goldsmith’s net worth remains private. The frequently quoted figure of US$100 million comes from a celebrity wealth website. There is no published account of her personal assets and debts to support that figure. Her father’s fortune and the sales of films she helped produce are also poor measures of her individual wealth.
Company records give a clearer answer about her business interests. Goldsmith controls at least 75 per cent of the shares and voting rights in Instinct Productions. Her working life has included journalism, screenwriting and production, but the fees for individual projects and her annual salary remain private.
Charity work and latest news
As a UNICEF UK ambassador, Goldsmith met girls affected by trafficking in Romania and children affected by HIV and AIDS in Kenya. In Pakistan, she visited earthquake relief operations in 2006 and families displaced from the Swat Valley in 2009. After the 2022 floods, she offered a private screening of her film for auction. A London dinner she organised with her brother Ben raised more than £150,000 for flood relief.
In November 2026, a British civil court order from 2015 drew renewed attention. Goldsmith and her then partner, Russell Brand, had brought a harassment claim against massage therapist Szilvia Berki after Berki accused Brand of assault. Police took no further action on that allegation. The court granted an injunction that restricted whom Berki could speak to about it. Publication of the order prompted scrutiny of those restrictions. The civil proceedings did not determine whether the assault had taken place.
Her contribution to British cinema
Goldsmith’s most personal film began with a choice she had watched people make in Lahore. Years later, she gave a Pakistani man making that choice the part usually reserved for someone else in a British romantic comedy. He could explain what he wanted, change his mind and leave the woman holding the camera to reconsider her version of his story.
Frequently asked questions about Jemima Goldsmith
1. Who is Jemima Goldsmith?
Jemima Goldsmith is a British screenwriter, producer and former journalist who works under the name Jemima Khan. She founded Instinct Productions and wrote the romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do with It?
2. How old is Jemima Goldsmith?
She is 52 years old as of November 2026. She was born in London on 30 January 1974.
3. Who are Jemima Goldsmith’s parents?
Her parents are Sir James Goldsmith, a British-French financier, and Lady Annabel Goldsmith, daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry.
4. Is Jemima Goldsmith married?
Yes. She married financier Cameron O’Reilly on 12 September 2026. Her sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, walked her down the aisle. Their father is Imran Khan, to whom she was married from 1995 to 2004.
5. Who are Jemima Goldsmith’s siblings?
Her two younger brothers are Zac Goldsmith and Ben Goldsmith. She also has half-siblings on both sides of her family, including Robin Birley and India Jane Birley on her mother’s side.
