Elizabeth Hurley

London, Dec. 13: Elizabeth Hurley will no doubt argue that the sexual freedoms enjoyed by men in Britain in 2010 should be equally available to women.

“If I wish to have sex with Shane Warne or anyone else for that matter, it is no one else’s business but my own,” she would probably insist, though she has only indirectly confirmed she had a two-night fling with the Australian cricketer by announcing her marriage to Arun Nayar was over.

She had asserted her status as an independent woman in 2002 when her American billionaire lover, Steve Bing, questioned whether he was really the father when she said she was pregnant. She had to take recourse to DNA tests to prove that he was. However, having won that battle, she rejected his offers of financial help and said she would bring up their son, Damian, as a single mother — which she has done.

In modern British society, women still have not won all the sexual freedoms open to men but many of the boundaries have been rolled back. This applies to British Indian women as well.

What went wrong with her marriage to Nayar is still unknown — he has always maintained a dignified silence about his relationship with Hurley — but since the couple met in 2002, her husband can reckon that by her standards, he has had a decent innings. It is just conceivable he has done the dumping and the fling with Warne is a form of revenge.

The Elizabeth Hurley who is projected in the media — the upper class English rose — is largely a figment of her own imagination. But the media has bought the story.

She has certainly been able to use her stunning good looks — at 45, she still photographs well and can attract men — to devastating effect. In reality, she is a product of a lower middle class background, which makes her climb to “celebrity” status even more creditable.

A biography, Liz Hurley Uncovered, written in 2003 by Alison Bowyer, an experienced show business journalist, begins: “Her voice is pure cut glass and her vowels that of a 1930s duchess.”

Perhaps Gaj Singh, the erstwhile Maharajah of Jodhpur who keeps inviting Hurley to his charity gala dinners, considers her aristocratic, but Bowyer has delved deep into her subject’s background.

“Elizabeth Hurley both looks and speaks the part of an upper-class girl from the Home Counties. But the image is an illusion. Weekends in country houses and expensive Swiss finishing schools were not on the agenda for young Elizabeth. Her ancestors had been housemaids in such houses, and home for Liz Hurley was a modest bungalow in Buckskin, a district of Basingstoke new town. And from being educated at a top public school, she attended a sprawling comprehensive along with twelve hundred other mainly working-class pupils.”

“She was born Elizabeth Jane Hurley on June 10, 1965, in Hampshire.… By 1983 Elizabeth had enough of boring Basingstoke and was about to head for London.”

An early boyfriend, Thomas Arklie, was left behind, “the first casualty of her relentless quest for fame”.

In 1987, she met Hugh Grant, a rising actor five years older than her, in a bit part Spanish movie about Lord Byron. They quickly became lovers on and off screen.

“We were snogging on set and soon snogging off it too,” Grant admitted later.

When she began dating Grant, “Elizabeth fell in with a new crowd, most of whom Grant had been at Oxford with. They included Nigella Lawson… who went on to achieve fame as ‘the Domestic Goddess’,” according to the biography.

In October 1991, she went to Los Angeles for 10 months. She was disappointed when Warren Beatty sent a limousine for her but made no attempt to seduce her. But while protesting she was faithful to Grant, she had “a highly charged sexual affair” with an Englishman, William Annesley, part of the LA set.

To Hurley’s horror, Annesley sold his story of their sex sessions to the News of the World for £30,0000.

“She’s supple and athletic and what she doesn’t know about sex isn’t worth knowing,” Annesley wrote about his “insatiable” lover. “She’d wear me out.”

Whether Warne agrees remains to be seen.

Hurley could certainly argue she was let down by Grant who kept her on as his girlfriend for many years but ultimately could not commit to marriage. Much the same happened with Grant and Jemima Khan.

Hurley was hurt and angered when Steve Bing questioned the paternity of their baby conceived after a brief fling in 2002. The British newspapers rallied to her support and called him “the cad, Bing Laden”. He told her to get rid of the baby which made her determined to keep the child — now her much-loved son Damian. He seems genuinely fond of “Uncle Hugh”, with whom Hurley is on affectionate terms though the old fire has obviously long burnt out. He appears to check out her new lovers — he was present while Hurley and Warne dined in London last week.

Following the split with Nayar, one assumes her appearances at the Jodhpur royal table will be less frequent, for which Gaj Singh may be truly grateful.

What seems unlikely is that Hurley and Warne will form a couple. Part of the new deal in Britain is that a woman of 45 should be able to enjoy sex with anyone she wants to, provided no one else is hurt.