Rupert Murdoch, the FOX media mogul who has been married and divorced four times by the age of 92, recently announced his engagement to be married again. But as quickly as the news came out, the couple decided to call it off. According to Vanity Fair Magazine, Murdoch had become uncomfortable with Smith’s evangelical beliefs.
Murdoch announced his engagement to 66-year-old Ann Lesley Smith, a former model, singer, radio host, and police chaplain, after less than a year of dating.
Murdoch recently divorced Jerry Hall, a model and actress he married in 2016. Hall is well-known for having been married to Mick Jagger and having four children with the Rolling Stone rock star.
The billionaire announced his engagement in The New York Post, one of his newspapers. He also owns the Fox Broadcasting Network, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News Channel, HarperCollins publishers, and a number of other businesses.
Smith has been married twice and is the widow of Chester Smith, a former country singer and broadcaster.
Smith told gossip columnist Cindy Adams that she had been widowed for 14 years and that her husband worked in the same industry as Murdoch, so they “speak the same language” and hold similar beliefs.
The couple met seven months ago, in September 2022, at Murdoch’s Bel Air home and winery during a reception, and he called her a few weeks later.
The businessman married Patricia Booker in 1956, whom he divorced in 1967, before marrying Anna Maria Torv that same year. They divorced in 1999, and he married Wendi Deng the following year, whom he divorced in 2013.
Murdoch had six children from his previous three marriages before marrying Hall in 2016 and divorcing her in 2022.
On St. Patrick’s Day in New York, Murdoch proposed to Smith with a diamond solitaire ring.
Dominion Voting Systems sued Murdoch’s company, Fox Corp, for $1.6 billion, claiming that Fox News’ hosts deliberately defamed it by falsely claiming mass election fraud in the 2020 presidential elections. Murdoch is one of the world’s wealthiest men.