Rupert Murdoch, 92, is ENGAGED to Ann Lesley Smith

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch has revealed he is engaged to new girlfriend Ann Lesley Smith, just six months after the couple met, and less than a year after his divorce from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, was finalized. .

The 92-year-old shared the news in an interview with one of his own publications: the New York Post – this morning, revealing that he popped the question at Smith, 66, wearing an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring, which he “personally selected”.

Murdoch, who has been married four times previously, admitted he was “nervous” to raise the question once again, confessing that he had “feared falling in love” but said he is confident his marriage to Smith will be his “last.” ‘.

“I was so nervous,” he shared, while revealing that the couple plans to get married this year, in late summer. “I was afraid of falling in love, but I knew that this would be the last. It would be better. I’m happy.’

The newly engaged billionaire, who is worth an estimated $17 billion, popped the question in New York City on St. Patrick’s Day, joking in the interview: “I’m a quarter Irish.”

Murdoch finalized his divorce from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall (seen on their wedding day), in August 2022 after six years of marriage.

The businessman – whose relationship with Smith was revealed exclusively by the Daily Mail in January – revealed that he and Smith met last September at his Moraga vineyard in Bel Air, California, and explained that he called her on the phone two weeks after meet her in a gathering of 200 people. event.

Meanwhile, Smith, a former police chaplain and widow of the late country music star Chester Smith, described the relationship as “a gift from God”, revealing that the couple “share the same beliefs” and “speak the same language”.

‘I am a 14-year-old widow. Like Rupert, my husband was a businessman. He worked for local newspapers, developed television and radio stations, and helped promote Univision. So I speak Rupert’s language. We share the same beliefs,’ she shared.

Smith went on to say that she feels she “waited for the right time” to re-engage, adding that her “friends are happy for her.”

The summer wedding will mark the fifth time Murdoch has married.

He has six children from his previous marriages: daughter Prudence MacLeod, now 64, with his first wife Patricia Booker, daughter Elisabeth, now 53, and sons Lachlan, now 50, and James, now 49, with his second wife Anna Mann, and their daughter Grace, now 21, and Chloe, now 19, whom he shares with his third wife, Wendi Deng.

Murdoch and his fourth wife, former supermodel Hall, had no children together during their six-year marriage, which ended last year.

The couple tied the knot in London in March 2016 in a low-key ceremony at Spencer House, overlooking Green Park, after a whirlwind five-month romance.

The 92-year-old shared the news in an interview with one of his own publications, the New York Post, revealing that he proposed to Smith (seen together in January), 66, with a solitaire cut diamond ring. Ascher.

The businessman, whose relationship with Smith (pictured vacationing with Murdoch earlier this year) was exclusively revealed by the Daily Mail in January, revealed that he and Smith met last September at his Moraga vineyard in Bel Air, California. .

Murdoch married his first wife, the former flight attendant Patricia, in 1956; however, the couple separated in 1967, nine years after the birth of his only daughter, Prudence.

That same year he married his second wife, Anna, a Glasgow-born journalist to whom he was married for 32 years, before divorcing in 1999.

As part of her divorce settlement, Anna received $1.7 billion, including $10 million in cash, according to CNBC.

Murdoch married Wendi just 17 days after divorcing his second wife, Anna. At the time of their wedding, Murdoch was 68 years old, while Wendi was only 30 years old.

That marriage lasted 14 years, before it was announced that the couple was divorcing, with a News Corp spokesman revealing in June 2013 that their union had been “irretrievably broken for more than six months”.

Smith has been married twice before, most recently to country music star Chester, who died of a heart attack in August 2008 at the age of 78.

Prior to that relationship, Smith was married to John B. Huntington, a lawyer descended from one of California’s pioneer railroad families. According to interviews given by Ann Lesley, their life together was golden but miserable.