Rupert Murdoch is back on the market. It comes after a fleeting love story between the 92-year-old media mogul and the 66-year-old dental-hygienist-turned-radio host and prison chaplain Ann Lesley Smith.
A source close to Mr Murdoch confirmed to the LA Times that the couple’s engagement – announced less than three weeks ago – has been called off.
The Australian-born media mogul proposed just weeks ago, on St Patrick’s Day in New York City, then gushed over his engagement to the Murdoch-owned New York Post, saying he “dreaded falling in love”, but knew this wedding would be his last.
“It better be,” he said. “I’m happy.”
Mr Murdoch split from fourth wife, Jerry Hall, in August 2022, just a month before reportedly meeting Ms Smith at his winery and vineyard in Bel-Air.
In January, the whirlwind romance was on display when he and Ms Smith were photographed beachside in Barbados.
And less than a month before Mr Murdoch popped the question, the Wall Street Journal reported that he signed on to buy a 603-square-metre full-floor apartment in a building overlooking New York’s Central Park South.
On March 17, Mr Murdoch asked Ms Smith to be his wife, presenting her with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire.
“For us both it’s a gift from God,” Ms Smith told the Post.
“I’m a widow 14 years,” she said. “Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman. Worked for local papers, developed radio and TV stations and helped promote Univision. So I speak Rupert’s language. We share the same beliefs.”
Mr Murdoch has declined to comment, but a source close to the media titan told Vanity Fair the billionaire had become “increasingly uncomfortable” with Ms Smith’s “outspoken evangelical views”.
However, another reported friend has told other media that Ms Smith struggled with the idea of spending her life in the spotlight like Mr Murdoch.
“She just could not cope with being in the public eye,” they said.
“She is very private. They sat down and talked yesterday and agreed it was better for them to part.
“He accepts that he will always be in the public eye and there is nothing he can or would do to change that.”
The split was amicable, and the pair reportedly remain close.
According to the Christian Broadcasting Network, Ms Smith’s first marriage to lawyer John B Huntington allegedly turned abusive, and she was left penniless and homeless when they divorced.
She was on welfare and turned to modelling – and then Jesus after reading the evangelical book Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?.
She began volunteering as a police chaplain, then met country singer and media mogul Chester Smith, whom she married and recorded a country album with in 2005. He died in 2008.
-with AAP
