Hugh, Jemima announce their split

New Delhi: British actor Hugh Grant's and his girlfriend of three years, Jemima Khan, have "decided to split amicably," said The Daily Mail.

The news daily said, “both sides felt it was the natural end of the long relationship. Nobody else was involved on either side. As far as Jemima was concerned she never really felt the relationship would lead to marriage, although she was extremely fond of Hugh."

Grant, 46, started dating ex-wife of Pakistani-born cricket champ and politician Imram Khan about three years ago. He previously had a 13-years relationship with actress and model Elizabeth Hurley. Grant's long relationship with Hurley ended in 2000.

"They both finally realized it was over," a friend of Khan's was quoted. "When Jemima told Hugh, it didn’t surprise him—it wasn't a bolt from the blue—the relationship was effectively dead. She feels the relationship has run its course. She felt the relationship was probably never really sufficiently stable to move towards marriage."

The rumors about the couple's split started after the couple were reportedly seen arguing at Khan's 33rd birthday party in Mayfair. Khan reportedly joked about Grant's "commitment phobia" to which he responded that she was behaving like "a dictator."

However, the Daily Mail reports "Jemima thought that Hugh was using Drew Barrymore to deflect her from another love interest."

Certainly, 31-year-old Barrymore, Grant's co-star in the new romantic comedy Music And Lyrics, is newly single, having split from rock star Fabrizio Moretti.

But this display of affection at their movie's New York premiere, which Jemima said made her look like a 'jilted woman', is not the whole truth behind her break-up from Hugh.

The real cause for the split was her unbearable suspicion that Grant is conducting another, altogether more secret, romance with a highly-placed figure in the film world.

Jemima has become convinced her 46-year-old boyfriend is involved with a

glamorous young Cambridge-educated film executive from Warner Bros. Her suspicions were aroused by a series of late-night calls from an upper-class female with a 'plummy voice'.

Prolonged absences when Hugh would leave the house and turn off his phone only fuelled Jemima's insecurities, friends say.

With inputs from The Daily Mail