So billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is set to marry Ann Lesley Smith, a former California police chaplain. The happy couple, who are planning a summer wedding at 92 and 66, say their romance is a “gift from God”.
It will be his third time down the hall and his fifth.
Breaking the news just seven months after his divorce from Jerry Hall, Murdoch says he and his fiancée look forward to “spending the second half of our lives together.”
Of course, this rather optimistic statement anticipates a longevity that would be more extraordinary than anything else in his already extraordinary life story. But this new romance has clearly left him feeling younger than spring.
Her suitor, a widowed radio host and vineyard owner, adds that they share beliefs and life experiences.
Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is set to marry Ann Lesley Smith, a former California police chaplain. Pictured: The couple holding hands in Los Angeles earlier this year.
Murdoch and Smith say their romance is a “gift from God,” but their six children will see it the same way, Alison Boshoff asks. Pictured: Murdoch with his fiancee in Barbados in January
“For hindsight, it’s not my first rodeo,” says Ann Lesley. Approaching 70 means being in the latter half. I waited for the right moment. Friends are happy for me.
Naturally, there will be much rejoicing at the upcoming nuptials.
Guests at the Murdoch-Smith wedding will include world leaders and other titans of the business world. After all, it owns a portfolio of national and international newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the US, The Sun and The Times in the UK, plus book publisher Harper Collins.
Members of Murdoch’s extended family will also be in attendance: he has six children, including four daughters: Prudence, 64, Elisabeth, 54, Grace, 21, Chloe, 19. The eldest son, Lachlan, 51, is his heir and has been running her business with him since 2014. Son James, 50, resigned from News Corp’s board of directors in 2020 after ‘disagreements’ over editorial content.
As we shall see, the question of what to do with this turn of events is a story yet to be written.
When it comes to the event itself, the smart money is in a sunset ceremony at Moraga Vineyard in Bel Air, which is owned by Murdoch. It was where they first met, at a ‘wine mix’ in September 2022. Here, Ann Lesley was introduced to the newly single billionaire, and he waited a fortnight before asking to see her again.
Who would have suspected that Murdoch would be such a perennial romantic to pop the question so soon after ending his six-year marriage to Jerry Hall and paying him around £30 million?
I’m told Jerry is still crying into his coffee as he contemplates the ashes of his love story, and that was before his ex announced that he was getting married again. She’s been quietly spending time with her four children by Sir Mick Jagger, including a Christmas break on Mustique with the Rolling Stones and all of her progeny.
Guests at the Murdoch-Smith wedding will include world leaders and other titans of the business world. In the photo: Smith in the Caribbean
The Texan beauty was sure it was forever, and she blames Murdoch’s adult sons, executives of his empire, for driving a wedge between them. Her friends insist that her children were suspicious of attempts to revise the prenup in her favor, and that a back-and-forth over Jerry’s legal settlement in the event of Murdoch’s death led to their separation.
Once again, events in the Murdoch family are casting a shadow over the imaginary dramas of Succession’s Roy dynasty. (By the way, the hit TV show, created by Brit Jesse Armstrong, returns for its fourth and final run on Monday on Sky.)
As for why the hell, at 92, he would contemplate another marriage, sources close to Murdoch indicate that he is as moral as a choirboy when it comes to romance, and doesn’t believe much in sex outside of marriage.
The role of her Christian faith was noted in a well-researched newspaper article published on the American news website The Daily Beast in February, which predicted an impending engagement. Murdoch proposed to her shortly thereafter, on Friday, March 17, with an Asscher-cut diamond, while the couple were in New York.
He told Cindy Adams, the gossip columnist for his newspaper, the New York Post: “I was very nervous. He was afraid of falling in love, but he knew that this would be the last. It would be better. I’m happy.’
Born in 1957, his new wife is a wealthy woman in her own right thanks to a three-year marriage to a much older man who was worth at least $50m (£40m).
He is an outspoken and sparkling soul who loves dogs, fast cars, wine and Jesus, and mistrusts politicians and the liberal elite. In her, Murdoch has found another strong woman he can respect.
His first wife, Patricia Booker, mother of his eldest daughter, married him when he was 25; Then came Anna Torv, the journalist mother of three of his children, followed by executive Wendi Deng, with whom he has two daughters.
Ann Lesley Smith (pictured) is a widowed radio personality who insists her friends are happy about her new marriage.
All of his wives stand out for both their strong personality and their beauty.
Ann Lesley attended Idaho State University in 1980 on scholarship and later worked as a model. She then went into business as a dental hygienist before marrying her wealthy first husband, John B Huntington, a lawyer descended from one of California’s pioneer railroad families.
Huntington served on the board of trustees of the San Francisco Ballet and was an honorary deputy district attorney and deputy sheriff. The couple were leading members of a wealthy social elite.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he said: ‘The world opened up for me. Almost like royalty. During the day my life was so much fun. John was into cars, and we had a stable full of all kinds: exotic Ferraris and all. I spent $65,000 (£53,000) a month on clothes easily. Money was not an object. He had everything in the world.
‘Sometimes it was wonderful. It is the type of marriage that anyone would have liked to have. During the day he showered me with gifts and praise.’ But he added: ‘When John started drinking, he became a different person. He would lock me out of the house. He abused me physically, he abused me mentally, emotionally… which is actually worse than physical because you start to believe the lies.
In the divorce that followed she found herself broke. ‘I was ashamed. It was so different. What was she going to do?
“I would go shopping at midnight so no one would see me. I really wanted to kill myself because my life was so bad.
Everything changed when, during a modeling job, the coordinator of the event approached her. She recalled, ‘She takes me to the cafeteria and says, ‘Honey, I can see right through you. You are suffering. The only thing that’s going to help you is that you need Jesus Christ.’
As for why the hell, at 92, he would contemplate another marriage, sources close to Murdoch indicate that he is as moral as a choirboy when it comes to romance, and doesn’t believe much in sex outside of marriage.
“So she gave me (a book) The Four Spiritual Laws, and I reluctantly took it, went home that night, and got down on my knees. She was so hurt, so alone, and so rejected. And I prayed that God would help me and forgive my sins… Everything that is in the book I did.’ She became a volunteer police chaplain and she used her life experiences to care for others, and she said in an interview that she told the people she cared for: ‘I’ve been here. I’ve been here and you can leave.
Through his prison chaplaincy, she met her second husband, country and western musician Chester Smith, who was divorced, 27 years her senior, and the father of three children.
Smith had a hit in 1955 with the song Wait A Little Longer Please Jesus. A successful entertainer, he later launched a country music radio station in Modesto, California, followed by a television station in Northern California, and then others, including one in Spanish.
A wealthy man, he is said to have sold his television business for $40 million in cash, plus an additional $45 million in stock, according to a newspaper obituary.
Before he divorced his first wife, there were houses in Carmel and Beverly Hills. After the divorce, there was clearly still a lot of money. He and Ann Lesley lived in a mansion on a bluff overlooking the Stanislaus River outside Riverbank, California. There was also a 2,800-acre cattle ranch in San Andreas.
The two released a CD in 2005, the year of their marriage, titled Captured by Love, but just three years later, Chester died of heart failure.
Since he became a widow – he has no children of his own – he has enjoyed offering life advice on a radio program.
She told an interviewer: ‘A lot of people haven’t been through much, and they pontificate about things they’ve read in a book. As my late husband used to say: ‘Would you rather go down the Amazon River with someone who has been doing it for 35 years or someone who is a professor at Stanford and has studied it in books?’ ‘
Last year he shared his thoughts on the radio about business closures during Covid. ‘They try to close people’s businesses. Do you know what is doing this? It’s part of the plan, the Plandemic – oops! – pipe. It comes and pounces.
‘It’s made up for the most part, it’s killing a lot of people… now they’re stepping on bodies. The way something starts is the way something ends. Trust me. That’s a little wisdom bomb for you.
He went on to say about the pandemic: ‘Wasn’t it planned in Davos? Someone told me this was planned in: Bill Gates had a meeting in October 2019, holy smoke, and they did this pandemic rehearsal, like a fire drill like we used to do in school? And that’s what they did.
Further right-wing views were revealed when she shared an anti-Hillary Clinton post of herself on social media dressed as Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies with the caption: “Terminator 10: Hillary’s Solution.”
So how will ‘Terminator’ get along with the Succession kids? Sounds like a blockbuster for sure.
