All but her most devoted fans will attest that Liz Hurley is not a particularly good actress. But she and Arun Nayar have made a good job of pretending all was well in their three-year marriage. Only six weeks ago, she did her usual legs-cleavage-smile routine when the couple attended Elton John’s Winter Ball. To those who knew her well, however, yesterday’s announcement that the marriage has been over ‘for some months’ will have come as little surprise.
It had become increasingly clear behind the scenes that the marriage which started with such an exhausting display of wealth and togetherness in 2007 was on the rocks.
‘He was hardly ever with her and she didn’t seem to mind one bit,’ said one of her society pals yesterday.
‘I’d been hearing that it was over between them for more than a year, but she was always very positive about him when you asked her,’ says another.
Perhaps the most significant clue was that this year she and Arun didn’t go on their usual sunshine holiday in October, even though it was her customary birthday present to her husband. Others had noted how Hurley had started taking her new best friend, the gay shoe designer Patrick Cox, to social events instead of her husband. I’m told she has even invited Cox to be her guest at her Gloucestershire home this Christmas, indicating that she had been quietly planning for her first festive season as a single woman. One thing is for sure: though the public exposé of her extra-marital fling will have come as an embarrassment, the relationship between her and Nayar was already over when into the vacuum stepped Shane Warne – precisely the sort of diverting and dangerous company that she had missed so much.
You can see why the attentions of such a notorious womaniser would be catnip to a woman who is not yet ready to let go of her racy image. (You don’t go out braless and in see-through shirts at the age of 45, as she does, if you aren’t in search of a bit of attention from the opposite sex.)
So if this was her little ego-boost after the end of her marriage, when did the troubles begin?
In truth, the union between Hurley and Nayar had always been a fiery one. The couple met in late 2002 but even in the blissful early days of Eurotrash parties and ski-ing at St Moritz there was ‘heavy bickering’. Right from the outset, Arun struggled at being seen so much in Liz’s shadow. She, meanwhile, was impatient when it came to his gentle nature. She was especially annoyed by his relaxed approach to securing a divorce from his first wife, the Italian-born model Valentina Pedroni, who was never slow to issue disobliging remarks about Hurley ‘stealing’ her husband. In the end it took Nayar almost five years to become a free agent, and to be able to give Hurley the wedding of her dreams – an immense affair at Sudeley Castle, owned by her friend Henry Dent-Brocklehurst, followed by lavish Hindu ceremonies in Rajasthan. (The event was, of course, recorded for posterity over a mere 53 pages in Hello! magazine, which can now add another name to its long list of those whose marriage has been ‘cursed’ by featuring in the publication.)
Since then the relationship has progressed through several rocky troughs, thanks largely to Hurley’s spectacular temper. She will admit that she is ‘nervy’ and ‘hyper’, whereas Nayar is laid back and gentle. He used to call her ‘Minx’ because he thought she was intoxicatingly sexy, but full of drama and mischief. She, in return, called him Slick – a joke about his vanity and taste for the high life. (His collection of expensive watches apparently has to be seen to be believed.) Nayar, an Oxford graduate, gave up a lot to marry the siren of Basingstoke – principally his playboy lifestyle which revolved around the more expensive European nightclubs and spending January in St Moritz and August in Nice. He was horrified when Hurley wanted to move out of Chelsea and into the country, where Nayar, a moneyed sophisticate who reads the Christie’s catalogue in bed and collects cufflinks, was reduced to acting mostly as La Hurley’s number one employee. (She has eight other staff on hand, should he fall short.)
It’s perhaps no wonder, then, that Nayar has needed to travel to Mumbai to attend to his computer software business regularly. I’m told he has recently been there for at least one week in four, and sometimes considerably more than that. As a result, locals in Gloucestershire have been convinced for some time that all was not well in the relationship. The talk in their circle was that Arun was fatally unglamorous, and did not, in the end, manage to fulfil his high-maintenance wife’s expectations.
His relative lack of financial success is said to have been a bit of a strain, too. They reportedly relied on Hurley’s income from Estee Lauder, for whom she continues to model, to finance their fancy holidays. One time, he even flew using her Airmiles. For Nayar, too, life in Britain was becoming a bit of a let-down. In Mumbai, he still has considerable social cachet – he’s the heir to a textiles fortune and his family are well known. In Britain, he was simply Mr Liz Hurley. And of course, there had always been a third person in the Hurley/Nayar marriage from the outset, namely Hugh Grant, who has lived at their home for extended periods, and holidays with the couple every August. In an interview this year, Hurley admitted: ‘My overall best friend is Hugh. There is a part of my life neither Arun nor my sister Katie understand; a career part and a different emotional level where Hugh is still my number one. We’ve been best friends for 24 years and that’s not nothing.’
She denies that there is even a faint flutter of sexual jealousy on any side, blustering: ‘We’re all grown up, and if I wanted to be with Hugh, we would be together.’ But many were left wondering what marriage can accommodate a bond like that. On a more practical level, as Nayar struggled to keep his business going during the global financial crisis, his wife had seldom been busier. She has concluded the filming of a Living TV fly-on-the-wall documentary about her particularly glammed up version of country life, and recently launched her own range of snack bars and beef jerky. Then there’s her range of swimwear, which she continues to promote. (Her Christmas card this year features her in a tiny bronze bikini from the Liz Hurley Beach collection, posing with a family of polar bears.)
Day to day, her brother Michael helps her to run her organic 400-acre farm, with its Old Spot pigs and Herdwick sheep, but it is an exhausting and time-consuming business. She also has Damian, her eight-year-old son by former boyfriend Steve Bing, to look after. She is devoted to ‘Master D’ as she calls him, and feeds him his tea while juggling the multiple demands of her empire.
Which brings us to one other major sadness in her marriage: the couple’s failure to have a baby. She admitted that she and Nayar had been trying for years without any luck. Now that she is 45 she had started to accept that any further children were unlikely. ‘Arun would love one,’ she said recently. ‘And I think it would be great if one came along. But we’re grateful for what we’ve got.’
She said Nayar was a ‘full father figure’ to her son. ‘Damian calls him daddy. He knows he’s not his blood father. He’ll sometimes forget, though, and say, “Tell me again why dad’s brown and we’re so white”. And I’ll say, “He’s not blood, remember”.’
That remark may have been casually made, but it does bear testimony to Liz Hurley’s instinct for independence. Her friends have long admired her ability to do it all on her own – the modelling, the mothering and the earning. But as her marriage ends, it means of course that she has absolutely nothing to lose now that she’s moving on.
God, this is good. Money, lies, babies, deceit, fame, and Hugh Grant endlessly hanging around as the third wheel. I’m telling you, Liz is crazy. It’s insane to me that Arun ever married her – what the hell was he thinking? Her blow jobs can’t be that good, you know.
Oh, and this Shane Warne guy just announced that his on-again/off-again marriage is over too. I think the woman is technically his ex-wife, but they were living together in Australia.
