In the admittedly unlikely event that Rupert Murdoch — the billionaire media owner and one of the most powerful people on the planet — ever resorted to running a lonely hearts ad, what would he say he was looking for in a woman?
So far, his marriages have ended in date order: model, journalist, media executive, and fashion model.
His youngest wife, Jerry Hall, who was abandoned via email, was extremely outgoing and well connected. Her predecessor Wendi Deng is brimming with ingenuity. Before her came Anna Torv, the mother of three of his six children, who was said to be his moral compass, and his first wife, Patricia Booker, was a young model whom he married when he was just 25 years old.
But now that 91-year-old Murdoch only finalized his fourth divorce in August, another striking match ensues.
Beach life: Ann-Lesley Smith is on vacation with Rupert Murdoch in Barbados
Soak up the sun: relax with the media mogul in the Caribbean
His new companion is Ann-Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old California widow.
A former prison chaplain-turned-broadcaster and agony aunt reveals on her social media that she loves German shepherds, fast cars, inspirational speeches, viticulture (the science behind growing grapes) and Jesus. Though not necessarily in that order.
She is also deeply suspicious of politics, speculating on a radio show called Covid “The Plandemic” that the global emergency may have been concocted by Bill Gates at a Davos summit in 2019 – more on that later.
She and Murdoch, who have a family fortune of £14.3billion, are currently holidaying in Barbados. Friends say they met in November and that Murdoch “seems very happy”.
Twice married Ann-Lesley is easily the richest woman he has ever dated. Her last husband, millionaire Chester Smith, a country and western legend turned TV mogul, was 75 when she married him and sadly died just three years later in 2008, leaving her in charge of her 156-acre estate in California, where she grows grapes and olives.
Murdoch – who owns the only winery in Los Angeles – is impressed. In fact, one of Ann-Lesley’s close friends revealed this week that they had actually met – and connected – through the wine business
Jennifer Ogden told the Mail: “She went to one of his wine parties in LA. She had been visiting them for a while and they struck up a conversation. You might think he’s the catch, but she’s quite the catch. She is a beautiful woman. She has a beautiful personality and emits a very bright light. He is lucky to have her in his life.”
Of the romance, Ogden adds, “It’s exciting. She told me that. It’s something exciting for them. Ann knows what she’s getting into – she’s a very, very intelligent woman. She’s been alone for a while. She was heartbroken when she lost Chester. I’m very glad she found some happiness and had fun and found someone to care about.
Ann-Lesley’s home is a 25,000 square foot mansion where, to her great credit, she teaches viticulture to participants in rehab groups to improve their professional skills.
She is also involved with other charities and is the founder of Last Chance Ranch, which is described as a “remapping” program that “helps headstrong men reach higher levels regardless of life’s obstacles and directs them to face personal setbacks as… use launch pads”.
According to her Facebook page, her personal motto is: “Where your problems are, there is a pearl.”
Surely there was sand in her oyster. As she said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, rich and then poor.”
Not much is known about her early life. After graduating from Idaho State University in 1980, which she attended on a scholarship, she worked as a model while also working as a freelance dental hygienist.
Records show that she married John B. Huntington, a lawyer who was a descendant of one of California’s pioneering railroad families. He died of cancer almost 30 years ago at the age of 59. According to interviews by Ann-Lesley, their life together was golden but miserable. Huntington had a public profile — he was a member of the San Francisco Ballet Board of Trustees and an assistant district attorney and honorary deputy sheriff.
She told the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview: “The world just opened up to me. Almost like a king. During the day my life was just so funny. John was into cars and we had a stable full of all kinds – exotic Ferraris and all. I spent $65,000 [£53,000] a month on clothes lightly.
“Money was not an object. I had everything in the world.
“Sometimes it was wonderful. It’s the kind of marriage that everyone would have loved to have had. During the day he showered me with gifts and praise.” But she added, “Once John started drinking, he became a different person. He would lock me out of the house. He abused me physically, psychologically, emotionally. . . that’s worse than physically because you start believing the lies.’
In the divorce that followed, she was broke.
‘I was ashamed. It was just so different. What should I do? I would go shopping at midnight so no one would see me.
“I really wanted to commit suicide because my life was so bad. Everything was just too much. I figured if I crashed my car into someone else very quickly, I would end it. Well, I drove recklessly. I wanted it to happen [but] it didn’t.’
Her life changed when she was approached by the events coordinator during a modeling job.
She recalls, “She takes me to the coffee shop and says, ‘Honey, I see through you. you hurt The only thing that will help you is that you need Jesus Christ.
‘Quite a Catch’: Ann-Lesley enjoys a wealthy lifestyle and is also an avid horse rider, like several in Murdoch’s family
‘So she gave it to me [a book], The Four Spiritual Laws, and I reluctantly took it, went home that evening and got on my knees. I was so hurt, so alone and so rejected. And I prayed to God to help me and forgive me my sins. . . I did everything in the book.
“The Lord gave me a thirst and hunger for Him, and I actually replaced the things of the world with the Scriptures.
“When I began to walk with God, the things of the world just seemed meaningless to me.”
Spurred on by her Christian faith, she became a volunteer police chaplain and used her life experience to minister to others.
“When I make my calls and deal with people who are in a lot of pain, I say, ‘I’ve been here. I was here and you can get out.’ It gives them hope.’
Through her prison chaplaincy, she met the man who would become her second husband, Chester Smith, a divorcee 27 years her senior with three children who was also a devout Christian.
Smith had a hit with the song Wait A Little Longer Please Jesus in 1955 (two years before Ann-Lesley was born). A successful performer, he later started a country radio station in Modesto, California, followed by a television station in Northern California, and then others including one in Spanish.
He was very wealthy. Before his divorce from his first wife, there were homes in Carmel and Beverly Hills. He and Ann-Lesley lived in a mansion on a bluff overlooking the Stanislaus River just outside of Riverbank, California. Their olive oil was marketed under the Olivewood Estate name. There was also a 2,800-acre cattle ranch in San Andreas.
Ann-Lesley, like several in Rupert Murdoch’s family, is a keen horse rider. The jewel in Murdoch’s real estate empire is a 340,000-acre ranch in Montana. In an interview, Ann-Lesley said of Chester: “He helped a lot of people. He was a wise man and he was a quiet man but boy did he make some breakthroughs.’
The two released a music CD entitled Captured By Love in 2005, the year of their marriage. He died three years later of heart failure.
“As Chester was dying he said, ‘Honey, you’re me now’. And it took some time to figure that out,” she said. “I am a person who can make things possible for other people.”
Since she became a widower – she has no children of her own – she enjoys offering life advice on a radio show.
“My show is about people, about life. I’m sort of the guru of the ingredients of life,” she says.
She said to another interviewer, “A lot of people haven’t been through much, and they preach about things they read in a book.
“As my late husband used to say, ‘Would you rather go down the Amazon with someone who’s been doing this for 35 years or with someone who’s a college professor at Stanford who’s studied it in books?’ ‘
Last year she shared her thoughts on a radio show about business closures during Covid. “They’re trying to shut down people’s businesses. Do you know what that does? It’s part of the plan, the plandemic – oops! – Management. It comes and it tumbles over. It’s mostly made up; it kills a lot of people. . . You’re stepping over corpses now. As something begins, so it ends. Trust me. That’s a little wisdom bomb for you.”
She went on to say that the ruling class should be taken to a landfill, then said of the pandemic: “Wasn’t it planned in Davos?
“Someone told me this was planned – Bill Gates had a meeting in October 2019, holy smokes – and they played through this pandemic like a fire drill like we used to do in school? And they did. I could see them sitting around laughing [laughs]; they will.’
More opinions were revealed when she shared an anti-Hillary Clinton post on social media of herself as Sarah Connor, the heroine of the Terminator films, with the caption “Terminator 10 – The Hillary Solution”.
Some of this, of course, matches the shots shown by contributors from the Murdoch-owned Fox News channel. He also owns national and international newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the US and The Sun and The Times in the UK, and book publisher Harper Collins.
Ann-Lesley clearly has strong beliefs, but it’s the efforts she has made to improve other people’s lives that her friends admire her most for.
Ogden met her at a professional event and quickly became the kind of friend who would share Sunday morning walks through Ann-Lesley’s vineyard. She says: “She is a beautiful woman inside and out; she has such a loving soul. She has quite a history.
“She’s a very bright light in a world where there’s a lot of anger and cynicism and hurtful, angry people; She is a ray of light. She has a lot of love and kindness. She is a wonderful singer-songwriter and wrote a beautiful song about angels and the homeless.
“I don’t know Rupert Murdoch, I know he’s got loads of money, but that doesn’t make a person any better than anyone else and she has a lot to offer.
“She was rich and poor, so she has a lot of compassion.”