Media magnate Rupert Murdoch (Melbourne, Australia, 92 years old) has announced that he is marrying Ann Lesley Smith, with whom he has been in a relationship since last September.
An announcement that comes just nine months after he closed his divorce from Jerry Hall.
Although the news has come out this Monday, the request for a hand was made in New York on Friday, March 17.
As Murdoch himself told the
New York Post
,
he gave his 66-year-old bride-to-be an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring, which he "personally selected."
"We are both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together," the businessman declared to the same newspaper that confirmed the news and is owned by him.
In the same publication, the businessman, who at 92 has already walked down the aisle four times, admits that he was very nervous to ask the question one more time.
He has also confessed that this link, the fifth marriage for him, will be the last.
“I was afraid of falling in love, but I knew that this will be the last.
I'm happy”, admits Murdoch, with a fortune valued at 17,000 million dollars – he is at number 35 of the 400 most millionaire Americans and ranked 76 of the Forbes billionaires
-
.
More information
Fourth divorce for Rupert Murdoch: the tycoon and the model Jerry Hall separate
For her part, Ann Lesley Smith, 66, and widow of country singer Chester Smith, has assured in the same publication that their relationship has been "a gift from God" for both of them.
“I have been a widow for 14 years.
Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman.
He 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 on her part.
“Approaching 70 means being in the last half.
I waited for the right moment and my friends are happy for me, ”explains Smith, who 14 years ago lost her second husband after suffering a heart attack.
Her first husband was the lawyer John B. Huntington, scion of 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 vineyard, in Bel Air (California), and which is owned by the magnate – his new fiancée and one of her husbands also owned a vineyard.
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 of the two together were published, enjoying a vacation on the beaches of Barbados, according to an exclusive account of the British newspaper
The Daily Mail
.
Now, both spend their time between New York, Montana, the United Kingdom and California.
Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 92, reveals he is ENGAGED to Ann Lesley Smith, 66 https://t.co/SSaWRWAFXC pic.twitter.com/bc3MMMz2LJ
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) March 20, 2023
The announcement of this new wedding, which is planned to take place at the end of the summer, comes just six months after he began his relationship with Smith, 25 years his junior.
In addition, the wedding will become the fifth link for Murdoch -who has six children-, after his divorce with the British model Jerry Hall, with whom he was married for six years and with whom he signed the separation papers last June .
Prior to this marriage, he was married to Wendi Deng, a businesswoman and investor, from 1999 to 2014. Before her, he divorced his second wife, Anna, a former newspaper reporter, in 1999, after more than three decades. together and with whom he married the same year that he separated from his first wife Patricia Booker, an Australian model whom he divorced in 1967 after being married eleven years.