Rupert Murdoch, 92, Reveals Engagement Less Than a Year After Calling Off Wedding to Ann Lesley Smith
Rupert Murdoch is engaged again within a year of calling off his wedding to Ann Lesley Smith.
Mar. 7 2024, Published 7:07 p.m. ET
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch revealed he's engaged... again, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Murdoch, 92, announced his engagement to retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, less than a year after he called off his wedding with Ann Lesley Smith, 66.
Murdoch is engaged to retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova.
The Fox News mogul isn't wasting any time wedding planning. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the 92-year-old plans to marry Zhukova, 62, on June 1. She moved to the U.S. from Russia and was previously married to billionaire Alexander Zhukova.
The wedding is expected to take place at his California vineyard and estate, Moraga.
Murdoch plans to marry his fifth wife on June 1 at his California vineyard.
Murdoch reportedly met Zhukova through his third wife, Wendi Deng, and the pair started dating last summer.
As RadarOnline.com reported, Murdoch was set to exchange nuptials with Smith last year, but called off the wedding in April 2023. Months later, Murdoch was spotted on a yacht with Zhukova.
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Murdoch's failed engagement came months after his divorce from fourth wife Jerry Hall.
Almost as quickly as Murdoch proposed to Smith, the engagement was called off. The former couple's engagement was announced in March — and then made headlines as the couple split the following month.
Murdoch's shocking engagement to Smith came mere months after he divorced his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, in August 2022.
"I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last," Murdoch said of Smith last Spring. "It better be. I’m happy."
Murdoch met his soon-to-be fifth wife through his third wife, Wendi Deng.
Murdoch ended up eating his own words as he called off the engagement weeks later. Nonetheless, the media tycoon apparently didn't let that stop him from diving back into the dating pool and look for a new wife.
Should Murdoch's bride-to-be make it down the aisle on June 1, she would become his fifth wife.
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Murdoch was most recently married to Hall from 2016 to 2022.
The Fox News founder also shares one adult child with first wife Patricia Booker, who he married in 1956. They divorced 11 years later.
Murdoch remarried in 1967 to Anna Maria Torv, whom he shares three children with. After 32 years of marriage, they divorced in 1999. The same year, he married his third wife, Deng, who he divorced in 2013.
Needless to say, Murdoch hasn't spent much time single since his first marriage in the late 1950s.