Arun Nayar with Elizabeth Hurley

London, Dec. 13: The cynical could call it the “curse of Hello!” but Elizabeth Hurley is not the first high-profile personality to have been stampeded into declaring a marriage over by newspaper exposure.

After the News of the World had published a blow-by-blow account of how 45-year-old Hurley had spent two nights at the Indian-owned luxury Bentley Hotel in London with the Australian cricketer Shane Warne, 41, she took to Twitter to announce her three-year-old marriage to the Indian businessman Arun Nayar, 46, was over.

It was perhaps the News of the World’s stinging accusation that she had cheated behind her husband’s back that persuaded her indirectly to challenge the paper’s allegations of infidelity.

“Not a great day,” she tweeted. “For the record, my husband Arun & I separated a few months ago. Our close family & friends were aware of this.”

It is entirely possible that Nayar himself learnt that the marriage was finally over from Twitter.

Hurley’s comment is slightly disingenuous because the couple were photographed together at the end of October. It’s true there have been persistent rumours that the marriage was in trouble but Hurley protested all was well.

In a separate message posted on his website, Warne confirmed the split from his wife.

This is not exactly news because the couple, who have three children, separated sometime ago and even attempted a reconciliation which failed.

“Sadly and unfortunately, Simone and I split up a while ago, our close friends and family were informed at that time,” said the message from Warne.

Warne will soon have to go on air as a TV commentator in the England-Australia “Ashes” series at home. “It is a private matter so we did not make it public. We remain friends and will continue to be good parents.”

After two nights in London and leaving behind more havoc than he used to cause in the prime of his bowling career, Warne caught a flight back to Australia. He and Hurley had met at the Goodwood racecourse in July and had been exchanging infantile tweets which were disclosed to their fans.

Neither Warne nor Hurley have denied the New of the World’s lurid account. Back in Australia, he would expect to get approving pats on the back from the “real men” in the cricketing circles in which he moves. He and Hurley were apparently holed up in his bedroom suite for “more than 11 hours” at one stage.

“Eyes closed and arms wrapped round each other, the unlikely couple were captured on camera in a sensational public clinch which will devastate her devoted husband,” reported the News of the World.

Even Mills & Boone could not improve on some of the prose: “While they waited for their coats to be brought to them Liz pulled Warne towards her in a darkened doorway, cupped his face with her hands and leaned in to lock lips. After releasing from their clinch, they gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled adoringly.”

And the following invariably happens with nearly all the couples who are caught out by the paper.

They “hug and kiss passionately” and, as with Hurley and Warne, “they can’t keep their hands off each other”.

By insisting she was a single woman and hence not a cheat, the businesswoman in Hurley may be trying to protect “Brand Liz Hurley”.

Although she stopped getting film parts long ago and the modelling contracts have also dried up — she was once the face of Este Lauder — her business interests do risk being damaged if the media depict her as a woman with loose morals. There was once a time when The Daily Telegraph ran so many fetching photographs of the quintessential English rose that the paper was dubbed “Hurleygraph” by jealous rivals.

Newspaper revelations can end a marriage with brutal abruptness. The late Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook was given minutes to choose between Margaret, his wife of 28 years, and his secretary Gaynor Regan by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s press supremo at 10 Downing Street – and chose the latter.

More recently, Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat who is the current energy secretary, was forced to dump Vicky Pryce, his wife of 26 years, and choose his mistress, Carina Trimingham, a media adviser, in order to save his political career.

Hurley and Nayar married in a civil ceremony at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, in March, 2007, and held a blessing and party at the castle the following night. They then had traditional Indian wedding celebrations at Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur.

Exclusive photographs were sold to Hello! for a reported £2 million despite the superstition that couples who invite the magazine to their wedding are likely to be doomed by “the curse of Hello!”.

Hurley now runs an organic farm in Gloucestershire about which she Tweeted: “My son Damian is so much happier there – having fresh air and running around outside. We made the big decision last Easter to move down there full-time – which was a big, dramatic change for a city girl – but I love it, I couldn’t love it more.”

Hurley’s main claim to fame is that she wore an eye-popping Versace dress held together with giant safety pins in 1994 – commonly referred to as “that dress”. It was to accompany her then boyfriend Hugh Grant to the premiere of what would become one of the most successful English movies of recent times, Four Weddings And A Funeral.

She and the Oxford-educated Grant, now 50, never married, though they remain close friends. He had his own troubles in 1995 when he was caught by LA police in the back of a car with a black prostitute, Divine Brown. Hurley “forgave him”.

Hurley, meanwhile, had a son in 2002 after a brief fling with an American billionaire, Steven Bing, who at first disputed paternity. The baby was christened Damian Charles Hurley, with wits suggesting the first name was inspired by “Damien”, son of the devil, in film The Omen.

Hurley met Nayar on the ski slopes of St Moritz in 2002. Eventually, he dumped his wife, Valentina Pedroni, an Italian model, for Hurley but the divorce was acrimonious.

As is the way with Hurley, there were many reports of her “canoodling” with Nayar in public, including on a BA flight where she allowed her urgent desire for physical intimacy get the better of her need for privacy.

Nayar, the son of Vinod, a Punjabi businessman with a textile business, and Gunnar, a German – the couple were divorced – was born in Leeds in December 1964, and read physics at Christ Church, Oxford, and Imperial College, London.

He ignored early warning signs about his wife’s temperament. While her father-in-law got out his camera during the wedding ceremony in Mehrangarh Fort, Hurley feared her exclusive with Hello! would be ruined and got her husband to eject his father from the premises.

Aarti Surendranath, ad film-maker Kailash Surendranath’s wife and a close friend of Nayar, who had attended the wedding ceremony, said today: “I am going to use a cliche and say no comments. I am a close family friend. Its their private life and nobody has anything to do with it.”

The musical chairs that so fascinate the media can be summed up as follows:

Steve Bing had a baby with Liz Hurley who was the long time girlfriend of Hugh Grant who dated Jemima Khan who was married to Imran Khan who faced Shane Warne who had a one night stand (two to be strictly accurate) with Liz Hurley who married Arun Nayar who dumped Valentina Pedroni who accused Liz Hurley of stealing Arun Nayar who is now splitting from Liz Hurley who remains best friends Hugh Grant who got in the back of a taxi with Divine Brown….

Simple, really.