Told to make chapatis, stay indoors: Imran’s ex-wife
Reham Khan, the former BBC journalist and ex-wife of cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan has claimed that she was told just to perform household chores and not to be seen outside.
Imran Khan and Reham announced their decision to split on October 30 amid reports that he objected to her meddling in politics.
Imran’s marriage to Reham was his second after his first marriage with English heiress Jemima Goldsmith for nine years ended in divorce in June, 2004.
Reham Khan, a divorced mother of three, left a job on regional BBC news and moved back to Pakistan in 2013.
“I was told specifically by a senior adviser: they basically wanted me to be in the kitchen, to be cooking chapatis and not to be seen ever again,” Reham told Sunday Times.
Reham said as soon as she and her youngest daughter moved into Imran’s mansion in Bani Gala, on a hilltop overlooking Islamabad, she felt stifled. Her career was a constant problem, particularly when she became an “ambassador for street children” in Peshawar.
“There wasn’t any involvement, I never attended meetings or anything of the sort, but obviously there was insecurity,” Reham said.
Reham said she gave up her television show to avoid a conflict of interest and did not work for several months. But she still upset Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreeki-Insaf (PTI) early on when a journalist questioned her about problems in her first marriage.
Asked in an interview if she had been the victim of domestic abuse, she “didn’t want to lie” and said yes. “I answered as diplomatically as I could, being a politician’s wife,” she said.