Rupert Murdoch, 92, calls off engagement with Ann Lesley, 66, in two weeks

Business magnate and Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch turned heads after he announced that he's getting engaged for a fifth time with radio host and then-partner Ann Lesley Smith. However, two weeks since the announcement, the 92-year-old has called it quits with the 66-year-old, it seems. 

What exactly caused the split?

Murdoch, who was first snapped with Smith in a photo featuring his shirtless self being helped out of the ocean by her, seems to have had issues with Smith’s extremely Evangelical views. While none of Murdoch’s representatives have confirmed this claim, their religious differences are being seen as the major reason between them falling out. 

Smith and Murdoch: A history of religion 

Smith has always been proud of the conservative branches of Christianity she tends to follow, telling multiple media outlets how she had suicidal tendencies but her life changed after she found “Christ in a coffee shop”. The former radio show host-journalist-dental hygienist-model also claims to have been a “street preacher” in California’s Marin County. 

Murdoch, on the other hand, was born in a Christian family but hasn’t been a very religious man. His second wife Anna Torv was identified as Roman Catholic but Murdoch never formally converted to Catholicism. When asked about his faith by Nicholas Coleridge for his insightful 1993 book on newspaper barons Paper Tigers, Murdoch mentioned that he’s most certainly “a practising Christian” but he has not formally converted to Catholicism. 

Smith and Murdoch: A history of marriages

Both Smith and Murdoch have had former partners with headline-making weddings. Smith married John B Huntington in her 20s, her husband being the inheritor of a Californian railroad fortune. But when Huntington became an abusive alcoholic, Smith left him and eventually found her faith-centric calling. At the time of their marriage, Smith was 28 and Huntington was 47. 

In 1999, Smith married Michael Carabello, a percussionist who used to tour with guitarist Santana. Smith was 42 at that time while Carabello was 52. 

The age gap between her and her husbands began increasing when 47-year-old Smith married 74-year-old country musician and broadcasting entrepreneur Chester Smith in 2005. He died in 2008, leaving his multi-million dollar fortune to be disputed between Anne Lesley Smith and her step-daughters (who accused her of subjecting Chester to 'financial elder abuse'). 

While Smith and Murdoch also had a 26-year gap, Murdoch himself is no stranger to matrimonial age differences. Interestingly, his first wife Patricia Booker was three years older as she was born in 1928 and Murdoch was born in 1931. Booker was a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne when she married Murdoch in 1956. The marriage lasted 11 years. 

Then came Anna Torv, a journalist and novelist with an age gap of 14 years. Murdoch married Torv in 1967 and divorced her in 1999, after more than three decades of marriage. 

Just 17 days after divorcing Torv, the then-68-year-old moved on by marrying a 30-year-old Yale graduate, Wendi Deng. The Chinese-origin American businesswoman went on to chair Murdoch’s STAR TV as Vice-President. In 2013, Murdoch filed for divorce. Around this time, he also ended his friendship with longtime ally and former British PM Tony Blair after believing that Blair and Deng were having an affair. 

In 2016, Murdoch went on to marry former model Jerry Hall, both of them sharing an age gap of 26 years. Their divorce was fairly recent, in 2022. So, Murdoch quickly moving on with another woman in her 60s wouldn’t come as a surprise. Murdoch however was confident that Ann Lesley Smith was the final love of his life before their subsequent breakup. 

What about Murdoch’s kids?

Even if Smith and Murdoch married, the media magnate’s six children wouldn’t have been affected as Smith had no children of her own. With Murdoch still serving as the Fox News Corporation’s chairman, a situation similar to the TV show Succession has emerged. Much like Succession’s Logan Roy, Murdoch is trying to keep his direct descendants farther from direct power. For instance, he is still the largest voting shareholder at FOX, followed by billionaire John Malone. 

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