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Rupert Murdoch engaged for the sixth time aged 92

The media tycoon, 92, is engaged once more – this time it is to Elena Zhukova, a retired molecular biologist

Rob Freeman
Friday 08 March 2024 10:13 GMT
Related video: Rupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith ‘call off engagement’ after two weeks

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Rupert Murdoch is engaged again at the age of 92.

The media titan will marry Elena Zhukova, 67, in June, with invitations already sent out, his team has confirmed.

Mr Murdoch is believed to have been dating the retired Russian molecular biologist for several months.

Rupert Murdoch is engaged to be married for the sixth time (PA)
Rupert Murdoch is engaged to be married for the sixth time (PA) (PA Archive)

The Australian-born media tycoon, who stood down as chairman of Fox and News Corp last year, has been married four times.

He met Ms Zhukova last summer through his third wife, Wendy Deng, and quickly decided he intended to marry her, a spokesman told the New York Times on Thursday.

His engagement to former police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith was called off just two weeks after being announced in April 2023.

Mr Murdoch married his first wife, former flight attendant Patricia Booker, in 1956 and the couple had one daughter, Prudence.

(Getty Images)

After their divorce 11 years later, his second marriage to Anna Torv, a trainee journalist he met while she was working on one of his Australian titles, lasted more than 30 years.

At various times, each of their three adult children – Elisabeth, Lachlan and James – appeared to have been in line to inherit his mantle.

Mr Murdoch had two further children – daughters Grace and Chloe – by his third wife Wendi Deng, who he married in 1999, just three weeks after he divorced Anna.

In 2016 Mr Murdoch surprised the world by marrying former model Jerry Hall – an ex-partner of Rolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger with whom she had four children. The marriage lasted six years before they too divorced.

Mr Murdoch’s media empire, which started in Australia in the 1950s, included buying the News Of The World and The Sun in 1969, the New York Post, Wall Street Journal and TV channel Fox News, which was launched in 1996.

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