Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 93, married for the fifth time on Saturday afternoon to retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, according to multiple reports.
The Fox & News Corp. chairman announced his engagement to Zhukova, 67, after dating for several months, in March. The couple exchanged vows at Murdoch’s Moraga Winery in Bel Air, Los Angeles, surrounded by close family and friends. according to To Fox News.
Photographs from the ceremony released by News Corp show the couple sitting in their Mediterranean-style villa, with Zhukova dressed by Emilia Wickstead, a London-based designer who has worked with both Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle. according to According to the Los Angeles Times, Zhukova was previously married to billionaire energy investor and Russian politician Alexander Zhukov, and they have a daughter, Dasha, who was previously married to billionaire Roman Abramovich. according to To CBS News. (Related article: Meet the man who’s set to take over the Fox News empire)
His engagement to Zhukova came just over a year after Murdoch broke off a two-week engagement to former San Francisco police chaplain Ann Leslie Smith. The media mogul was first married in 1956 to flight attendant Patricia Booker, with whom he had a daughter, Prudence, but divorced nearly a decade later.
Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng attend Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” Gala at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on May 8, 2008. (Photo: L. Busacca/WireImage)
Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall leaving St. Bride’s Church after their wedding in London, England on March 5, 2016. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images)
(From left) Clive Carr, Rupert Murdoch and his wife Anna, and William Carr at the News of the World shareholders’ meeting in London on January 2, 1969. (Photo by Michael Webb/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The same year that he divorced Booker, Murdoch married Scottish journalist Anna Torv and had three children together, Elizabeth, James and Lachlan, before separating nearly 30 years later. By 1999, Murdoch was married a third time to entrepreneur Wendi Deng, with whom he had two daughters, Grace and Chloe, before divorcing in 2013. Just three years later, in 2016, Murdoch was married for the last time to model Jerry Hall, but the marriage ended in 2022.
Less than a year later, Murdoch announced he would step down from Fox and News Corp and that his eldest son, Lachlan, would succeed him as sole chairman of News Corp, while continuing as chairman of the board and CEO of Fox.
“Throughout my professional life, I have engaged with news and ideas every day, and that will continue to be the case,” Murdoch said in a statement. “I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together over the decades, and I am deeply grateful and owe a great deal to my colleagues, whose contributions to our success may not always be visible to those outside the company.”
