Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old billionaire media mogul behind Fox News and News Corp., is tying the knot again. Fifth time’s the charm?
He’s planning to say “I do” with Ann Lesley Smith, 66, a dental hygienist-turned-police chaplain and radio host.
Murdoch’s New York Post broke the engagement news.
It comes less than a year after Murdoch split from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, the model and actor who shares four children with Mick Jagger. Hall married Murdoch in 2016, and they split in 2022, just a month before Murdoch and Smith reportedly met in September at his winery and vineyard in Bel-Air.
Murdoch was also previously married to Wendi Deng from 1999 to 2013; Anna Maria Torv from 1967 to 1999; and first wife Patricia Booker, whom he married in 1956 and divorced in 1967.
According to the Daily Mail, Smith was previously married to John B. Huntington, an attorney whom she said was “a descendant of one of California’s pioneering railroad families.” The marriage allegedly turned abusive, and Smith was left penniless and homeless when they divorced.
She turned to modeling and Jesus, then met country-western singer and media mogul Chester Smith while volunteering as a police chaplain, according to the Daily Mail. The two married and recorded a 13-track country album together in 2005 called “Captured by Love.” The cover features the two posed against a Rolls-Royce, Chester with his foot on the front bumper, holding a guitar and Ann Lesley wearing her police chaplain uniform. Chester died in 2008 at 78.
According to the Post, the media tycoon proposed to Smith with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire on St. Patrick’s Day in New York City.
“I’m one-fourth Irish,” he told the Post’s Cindy Adams. “I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy.”
“For us both it’s a gift from God,” Smith told the tabloid.
“I’m a widow 14 years,” she continued. “Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman. Worked for local papers, developed radio and TV stations and helped promote Univision. So I speak Rupert’s language. We share the same beliefs.
“In perspective, it’s not my first rodeo. Getting near 70 means being in the last half. I waited for the right time. Friends are happy for me.”
Murdoch said he met his bride-to-be at his Moraga wine estate.
“She and her husband also owned a vineyard and had been in the wine business,” he said. “Last year when there was 200 people at my vineyard, I met her and we talked a bit. Two weeks later I called her.”
He added, “We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together.”
Murdoch may have to split his attention between wedding planning and the $1.6-billion defamation lawsuit Fox is facing, brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges the mogul‘s news network amplified inaccurate stories that Dominion altered votes in the 2020 presidential election.
