Rupert Murdoch, now 92 years of age, has recently announced his engagement to his girlfriend Elena Zhukova, according to a spokesman this Thursday. This would signify Murdoch’s fifth marriage.
The ceremony is slated to take place in California, at Murdoch’s sprawling vineyard and estate known as Moraga, as relayed by a spokesman.
News of the impending nuptials arrives just months after Murdoch relinquished his role as chairman of both Fox Corporation and News Corporation, bringing his septuagenarian career at the helm of a vast media empire to a close.
As reported exclusively by The New York Times, Zhukova hails from Moscow and at 67 is a retired molecular biologist whom Murdoch took up with this past summer, or so the article added.
They were introduced through Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi Deng, as documented by a piece in The Daily Mail.
Murdoch’s most recent marriage ended in divorce last year after a six year union with actress and model Jerry Hall, who beforehand had a long-term accompaniment of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.
Briefly engaged last year was Murdoch to former chaplain of the San Francisco police force Ann Lesley Smith, though the pair terminated the engagement within just weeks, according to a Vanity Fair report citing a source mentioning Murdoch’s discomfort with Smith’s outspoken evangelical beliefs.
Moraga, the location where Murdoch’s forthcoming wedding is to occur, is likewise where Murdoch and then Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger initially conferred on The Walt Disney Company’s procurement of Twenty-First Century Fox for $71 billion, a transaction concluded in 2019.
