The media mogul of Australian descent, who obtained US citizenship in 1985, will marry Ann Leslie Smith, 66, and a former San Francisco police officer.
The New York Post reported that Murdoch and Smith met last September at one of Rupert Murdoch’s vineyards in California, a month after his official divorce.
After living together for a few months, Murdoch proposed to Smith on St. Patrick’s Day.
“I was very nervous,” Murdoch said in an interview with the “New York Post,” adding, “I was afraid of falling in love, but I knew it would be the last time.”
As for Anne Leslie Smith, whose husband died 14 years ago, she indicated that “approaching the seventies means being in the last stage” of his life. “I waited for the right moment,” she told The Post, stressing that her friends expressed their happiness at her decision.
And the “New York Post” indicated that the wedding will take place at the end of the summer.
In August, Murdoch and his fourth wife, American model Jerry Hall, became officially divorced after six years together.
Murdoch, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at $17 billion, through his News Corp group, owns hundreds of media outlets, especially in the United States, where his companies control the conservative “Fox News” station, the economic newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” and the affiliated “New York Post” newspaper. on the American right. He is also the owner of the newspapers “The Sun” and “The Times” of London and a number of newspapers in Australia.
The first marriage of Keith Rupert Murdoch to Australian air hostess Patricia Booker lasted from 1956 to 1967, then he remained married for more than 30 years (until 1999) to British journalist Anna Mann, who obtained, as the press reported at the time, more than a billion dollars after their divorce.
Then, a few days later, the billionaire married a Chinese businesswoman, Wendy Deng, who graduated from Yale University, and stayed with her until their divorce in New York in 2013.
Murdoch has six children from his marriage.
© 2023 AFP
