Rupert Murdoch, 92, announces engagement to Ann Lesley Smith
Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media mogul, announced on Monday that he was getting married for the fifth time, he told the New York Post after proposing in the city over the weekend.
Murdoch announced his engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, 66, a former police chaplain in San Francisco, model, singer and radio talk show host. He told the New York Post, “I knew this would be my last.”
Murdoch divorced actress Jerry Hall just last year. The couple were married in 2016.
Murdoch, the Australian-born businessman, owns hundreds of local, national and international news outlets through his media behemoth News Corp. He has been instrumental in founding and organizing some of the most popular and successful conservative media outlets around the world, including Fox News.
Smith, whose late husband was country singer Chester Smith, said that she and Murdoch met last September, saying it was “a gift from God.”
“I’m a widow 14 years,” Smith said. “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.”
Murdoch said he was nervous in proposing to Smith, saying he “dreaded falling in love.”
The wedding is set for the summer, and the pair said that they would spend their time between California, Montana, New York and the U.K.
Murdoch was first married in 1956. His longest marriage, with Anna Maria dePeyster, a Scottish-Australian writer, lasted from 1967 to 1999.
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