Once Rupert Murdoch wanted to do it: get married. The 92-year-old has already said “yes” four times, but Ann Lesley Smith should, according to Murdoch to the “New York Post”, become his last wife. But just two weeks after the engagement was announced, great love is said to have fizzled out again. As the “Vanity Fair” reports, citing sources close to Murdoch, the engagement was “abruptly” broken off. The reason for the about-face is said to be Smith’s religious views.
Smith and Murdoch are said to have met at the media entrepreneur’s Moraga winery in California last September, according to the New York Post. So just about a month after the Fox Corporation chairman’s divorce from wife number four, model Jerry Hall, was official.
The love for the former police chaplain Smith culminated in a marriage proposal on St. Patrick’s Day. The multimillionaire was “very nervous”, he said in an interview with “NYP” at the time. “I was terrified of falling in love again – but I knew it would be my last time. It was supposed to be. I’m happy.” The wedding celebration should take place in the summer. The appointment has now been canceled.
Murdoch is said to have “become increasingly uncomfortable with the outspoken evangelical views” of his fiancée Smith, the source told Vanity Fair. An official confirmation of the breakup of the engagement is still pending.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the most powerful media entrepreneurs in the world and quite controversial. Among other things, he owns the conservative news channel Fox News and the newspaper “Wall Street Journal” in the USA and in Great Britain the tabloid “Sun” and the newspaper “The Times”. Prior to his marriage to Jerry Hall, Murdoch was previously married to Patricia Booker, Wendi Deng and Anna Torv.
Source: Vanity Fair, New York Post, with footage from spoton and AFP