Jemima: My feelings of guilt

Jemima Khan has told of her feelings of "guilt" over her life of privilege. The multi-millionaire heiress says it is the chief reason she ploughs her energies into charity work. In a new interview, she confesses to " dragging" boyfriend Hugh Grant, 45, to impoverished countries to force him to "care".

"I clearly have a very privileged background," she says. "Do I have the guilt of the over-privileged? I'd have to say yes. And is it the reason I do charity work? Again I'd have to say yes, in part."

Ms Khan, 32, daughter of the late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, has become an ambassador for Unicef - a role she agreed to, despite a crippling fear of public speaking, after living with ex-husband Imran Khan in poverty-stricken Pakistan.

She tells Easy Living magazine of a visit to an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar - dubbed "plastic city" because its thousands of makeshift homes are made out of bin liners. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," she says.

"It was a profoundly shocking, life-changing experience for me. One image I still remember as the most harrowing: a tiny, malnourished seven-year-old boy struggling to lift one of the huge tents we were distributing. When someone suggested he get his father or uncle to help he told us his parents had died and he was looking after his three younger siblings."

Now, she says, she has forced Four Weddings star Grant - with whom she shares an £18 million Chelsea home - to witness similar deprivation, taking him to Nairobi for his first field experience. "It's difficult to care if you don't see it first-hand," she adds.

On a lighter note, she reveals the secret of her stunning looks: "I have a very good and attentive stylist and her name is Hugh."

The full feature appears in the October issue of Easy Living, on sale Thursday. To find out more about Jemima Khan's work for Unicef visit www.unicef.org.uk/aids