Rupert Murdoch’s recent engagement to Ann Lesley Smith has been called off, according to reports. The 92-year-old media mogul, who has been married four times previously, announced his engagement to Ms Smith in the US media a little over two weeks ago.
Mr Murdoch has now called off the engagement with the former San Francisco police chaplain after becoming uncomfortable with her evangelical Christian views, according to Vanity Fair. His most recent divorce from model and actress Jerry Hall was finalised in August last year, following a six-year marriage.
Announcing the engagement to 66-year-old Ms Smith in the New York Post last month, Mr Murdoch revealed that the couple had met at a vineyard in California in September 2022. The wedding was intended to take place in late summer and they were to split their time between California, the UK, Montana and New York, it was claimed.
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Mr Murdoch’s first wife was flight attendant Patricia Booker, with whom he has a daughter, and he was married to second wife Anna Murdoch, with whom he has three children, from 1967 until 1999. His third wife was Wendi Deng, mother to two of his children, but they split in June 2013, and he married Ms Hall in 2016.
Representatives for Mr Murdoch told the PA news agency he had no comment to make.
