Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time — and this time, he’s said it’s for good.
Murdoch, 92, announced his engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, 66, via his own publication, The New York Post. He told the outlet that he met Smith, a former police chaplain, at his California vineyard last September.
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“I met her and we talked a bit. Two weeks later I called her,” Murdoch told the Post.
Murdoch, who said he is “one-fourth Irish,” proposed in New York City on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. He presented Smith with an Asscher cut diamond solitaire ring that he personally selected.
“I was very nervous,” he said. “I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy.”
“We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” Murdoch said.
Smith was formerly married to the late Chester Smith, an American country singer and TV executive. She called the engagement to Murdoch “a gift from God.”
She added that because of her former husband’s work in the media business, she and Murdoch “speak the same language.”
“We share the same beliefs,” she said.
Murdoch and Smith plan to tie the knot in late summer.
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Australian-born Murdoch owns News Corp., a multinational mass media group that possesses hundreds of local, national and international media assets, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and book publisher HarperCollins. His net worth is estimated at US$17.2 billion.
Murdoch has been married four times. He first wed Australian flight attendant Patricia Booker in 1956. They divorced in 1967. Also in 1967, Murdoch married journalist Anna Mann, though they divorced in 1999.
That same year, Murdoch married Chinese-born entrepreneur Wendi Deng and later had three children. The couple divorced in 2013. Most recently, he married model Jerry Hall in 2016. They were together for six years until their divorce was finalized in August.
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