Rupert Murdoch is going to get married for the fifth time soon. The media mogul, who is 92 years old, is getting married to Ann Lesley Smith, who is 66 and a journalist and former police chaplain.
On St. Patrick’s Day in New York, Murdoch gave his girlfriend an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire to ask her to marry him. The first time they met was in September of last year, a month after Murdoch’s divorce from Jerry Hall was finalised. Find out more about the businessman’s fiancee by reading on.
Murdoch, who owns several news outlets like Fox News, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal, said the news in an interview in one of his own newspapers. “I was very nervous. I didn’t want to fall in love, but I knew it would be the last time. It has to be. He said, “I’m happy.”
Murdoch said this about his first meeting with Smith: “She and her husband also had a vineyard and worked in the wine business. When I had 200 people at my vineyard last year, I met her and we talked for a while. I called her after two weeks.”
The couple is planning to get married at the end of the summer. After that, they will spend time in California, the UK, Montana, and New York. “We’re both excited to spend the rest of our lives with each other,” Murdoch said with a smile.
Smith is known as a woman with a lot of skills. She also worked as a model, a radio reporter, and a singer-songwriter, in addition to being a journalist and a police chaplain for the Manteca Police Department and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
She was previously married to Chester Smith, a musician and TV host who died in 2008. “I’ve been a widow for 14 years. My husband was also in business, just like Rupert. Smith said in an interview that he had worked for local newspapers, built radio and TV stations, and helped promote Univision.
“So I can communicate with Rupert. We both believe the same things. From another point of view, this isn’t my first rodeo. When you’re getting close to 70, you’re in the last half of your life. I held off until the right time. She said, “My friends are happy for me.”
The owner of the media company has been married four times so far in his life. In 1956, he married Patricia Booker, who was his first wife. In 1967, they got a divorce, and Murdoch went on to marry Anna Maria. He split up with Maria in 1999 and married his third wife, Wendi Deng, the same year. He and Wendi Deng stayed together until 2013.
The businessman’s first three marriages gave him six children. In 2016, he got married in a civil ceremony in London to model and actress Jerry Hall. Before they split up in August of last year, they were together for six years.
“Jerry is really upset about what happened, and he says it all came out of the blue. One day, they were talking about spending the summer together in London. The next day, she got a message telling her to only talk to him through lawyers, a source said at the time.