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  4. Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time at 92 years old. Here's a complete timeline of his past marriages.

Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time at 92 years old. Here's a complete timeline of his past marriages.

Lauren Frias   

Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time at 92 years old. Here's a complete timeline of his past marriages.
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of Fox News Channel, September 10, 2017.Reuters
  • Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time to Ann Lesley Smith, a former model and police chaplain.
  • The pair met in September last year following his August divorce from Jerry Hall after six years of marriage.

Patricia Booker

Patricia Booker
Rupert Murdoch holding a copy of the Daily Mirror, a Sydney tabloid, taken in May 1960.      Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Murdoch married his first wife, Patricia Booker, a former department store model and flight attendant when he was 25 years old in 1956. He married her against the wishes of his mother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who reportedly regarded Booker as "less than" who she expected her son to marry.

The pair had a daughter together, Prudence, now 65, who sits on the board of Times Newspapers, a subsidiary of News Corp.

Murdoch and Booker were married for 11 years before divorcing in 1967.

Source: Vanity Fair, Evening Standard, Insider

Anna Murdoch Mann

Anna Murdoch Mann
Rupert Murdoch with his wife, Anna and their baby daughter, Elizabeth, at London Airport in 1968      Evening Standard/Getty Images

Shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Murdoch met his soon-to-be second bride, Anna Murdoch Mann, whose maiden name was Torv.

They first met when Murdoch Mann was 18 years old when she had the opportunity to interview Murdoch while she worked for the Sydney newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, which he owned.

The media mogul and Scottish-Australian novelist were married for 32 years and had three children together, Elisabeth Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, and James Murdoch.

Though Murdoch's marriage with Anna was his longest to date, the couple did have a tumultuous relationship towards the end as rumors circulated that the media tycoon was having an affair with Wendi Deng, who was working as an intern for News Corp-owned Star TV.

Murdoch and Torv divorced in 1999.

"I thought we had a wonderful, happy marriage," she said in an interview with Australian Women's Weekly in 2001. "Obviously we didn't."

Source: Insider

Wendi Deng

Wendi Deng
Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

Just 17 days after his divorce from Anna Murdoch Mann was finalized in June 1999, Murdoch, then 68, married Chinese-American entrepreneur Wendi Deng, who was 31 at the time.

The pair had met when Deng was a 29-year-old intern for Star TV, a Hong Kong television station owned by News Corp. They share two daughters, Grace and Chloe.

Deng and Murdoch separated in 2013.

Source: Evening Standard, Insider

Jerry Hall

Jerry Hall
Rupert Murdoch (L) and Jerry Hall attend the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.      Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

A week before his 85th birthday in 2016, Murdoch married former supermodel and actress Jerry Hall, then 59.

Hall was previously married to Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, with whom she shares four children, before they were granted an annulment in 1999.

After six years of marriage, Hall filed for divorce from Murdoch in of June 2022, but in mid-August of last year, she filed a request in Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss her original petition for divorce and for permission to file a new one, which was dismissed.

In a joint statement a day after news reports of Hall's filing, their representatives announced they had finalized their divorce and "remain good friends and wish each other the best for the future."

Source: Associated Press, Insider

Ann Lesley Smith

Earlier this week, Murdoch's love life was back in the spotlight after he announced he was getting married for the fifth time following his divorce from Hall.

In an interview with the New York Post, owned by Murdoch's News Corp, Murdoch said he proposed to his bride-to-be Ann Lesley Smith, 66, a former model and San Francisco police chaplain, on St. Patrick's Day.

"I was very nervous," Murdoch told the Post. "I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I'm happy."

The pair first met in last September at his vineyard in Bel Air, California. Two weeks later, Murdoch said he called her.

Smith, who was married to the late country musician Chester Smith who died in 2008, said: "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."

"We're both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together," Murdoch said.

Source: New York Post, Insider

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