Rupert Murdoch is all set to tie the knot for the fifth time! The 92 year old media mogul has announced his engagement to 66 year old journalist and former police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith.
Murdoch proposed to his lady love on St. Patrick’s Day in New York with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire. The couple first met in September last year, a month after Murdoch finalized his divorce from ex-wife Jerry Hall. Read on to know more about the business tycoon’s fiancé.
Rupert Murdoch Announces Engagement to Ann Lesley Smith
Murdoch, who owns several news organizations, including Fox News, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal, announced the news via an interview in one of his own newspapers. “I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy,” he said.
Talking about his first meeting with Smith, Murdoch said, “She and her husband also owned a vineyard and had been in the wine business. Last year when there was 200 people at my vineyard, I met her and we talked a bit. Two weeks later I called her.”
The couple is planning a late summer wedding, after which they will split their time between California, the UK, Montana, and New York. “We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” Murdoch said happily.
Ann Lesley Smith is a Journalist and Former Police Chaplain
Smith is known to be a woman of many talents. Apart from working as a journalist and a police chaplain for the Manteca Police Department and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, she also had a career as a model, radio journalist, and singer-songwriter.
She was previously married to musician and television broadcaster Chester Smith, who died in 2008. “I’m a widow 14 years. Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman. Worked for local papers, developed radio and TV stations and helped promote Univision,” Smith revealed in an interview.
“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,” she explained.
Murdoch Divorced his Ex-Wife Jerry Hall in August 2022
The media proprietor has gotten married four times in his life till now. He tied the knot with his first wife, Patricia Booker, in 1956. The couple divorced in 1967, and Murdoch moved on by marrying Anna Maria. He divorced Maria in 1999 and said ‘I Do’ to his third wife, Wendi Deng, in the same year before splitting with her in 2013.
The businessman has six children from his first three marriages. In 2016, he got married to model and actress Jerry Hall in a civil ceremony in London. The couple stayed together for six years before their divorce in August last year.
“Jerry is truly devastated by what has happened and insists that it was all a bolt from the blue. One day they were making plans to be together for the summer in London, then there was this message instructing her to only contact him via lawyers,” a source revealed at the time.
Congratulations to Rupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith! Stay tuned for more news and updates.
