Rupert Murdoch may be 92 years old, but he doesn’t plan on letting his advanced age stop him from living life to the fullest, so it should surprise that he just announced he’s engaged. Mazel tov to Murdoch and 66-year-old Ann Lesley Smith, his wife-to-be!
- Murdoch just got divorced last year. He and 66-year-old model Jerry Hall had been married for six years when they decided to split. That was the fourth marriage for Murdoch, who had previously been married to Wendi Murdoch, Anna Murdoch Mann, and Patricia Booker.
- He planned a romantic proposal for Smith. Murdoch wanted the day he got engaged to Smith, a former police chaplain from San Francisco, to be special. So, he popped the question in New York on St. Patrick’s Day with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring. “I’m one-fourth Irish,” he told the New York Post. Fair enough!
- Rupert Murdoch hopes this marriage will be his last. He’s one of the most successful and rich businessmen in the entire world, but that luck hasn’t carried over to his personal life. “I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love, but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy,” he said.
- Ann Lesley Smith calls her engagement to Murdoch a “gift from God.” She also talked to the Post, revealing that she’d been on her own for 14 years before meeting the media mogul last September. “I’m a widow 14 years. 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,” she explained. “We share the same beliefs.” She added that the timing felt right for love to come back into her life, saying: “In perspective, it’s not my first rodeo. Getting near 70 means being in the last half. I waited for the right time. Friends are happy for me.”
