Media magnate Rupert Murdoch (Melbourne, Australia, 92 years old) has announced his marriage to Ann Lesley Smith, with whom he has been dating since last September. An announcement that comes just nine months after his divorce from Jerry Hall was finalized. Although the news broke this Monday, the request for assistance was filed in New York on Friday, March 17. As Murdoch himself told the New York Post, he gave the 66-year-old bride-to-be an Asscher-cut solitaire diamond ring that he “personally selected.” “We both look forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” the businessman told the same newspaper that confirmed the news, which he owns.
In the same publication, the businessman, who by the age of 92 has already walked down the aisle four times, admits he was very nervous about asking the question again. He has also admitted that this union, his fifth marriage, will be his last. “I was scared of falling in love, but I knew this would be the last. I’m happy,” admits Murdoch, with a fortune of $17,000 million – he is ranked 35th on the list of the 400 millionaires in America and 76th on Forbes billionaires.
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For her part, Ann Lesley Smith, 66, and widow of country singer Chester Smith, affirmed in the same publication that their relationship was “a gift from God” for both of them. “I’ve been a widow for 14 years. Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman. He has worked for local newspapers, developed television and radio stations and helped promote Univision. I speak Rupert’s language and we share the same beliefs,” Smith said. “Approaching 70 means being in the last half. I’ve been waiting for the right moment and my friends are happy for me,” said Smith, who lost her second husband to a heart attack 14 years ago. Her first husband was attorney John B. Huntington, descended from one of the families that built the first railroad in the United States.
The couple met, according to Murdoch himself, in September 2022 at the Moraga winery in Bel Air, California, owned by the magnate — his new fiancé and one of her husbands also owned a winery. Smith attended an event with more than 200 guests organized by the businessman in this enclave. Murdoch explains in the same interview that he decided to ask for her phone number and call her to meet her two weeks after the party. Last January, the first photos together were released of the two, who are enjoying a vacation on the beaches of Barbados and are now splitting their time between New York, Montana, the United Kingdom and California, according to an exclusive report from British newspaper The Chron .
The announcement of this new wedding, set to take place at the end of the summer, comes just six months after he began his relationship with Smith, who is 25 years his junior. The wedding will also mark the fifth link for Murdoch – who has six children – following his divorce from British model Jerry Hall of six years, with whom he signed separation papers last June. Prior to this marriage, he was married to Wendi Deng, a businesswoman and investor, from 1999 to 2014, whom he married the same year he separated from his first wife Patricia Booker, an Australian model whom he divorced in 1967 after 11 years of marriage divorced.