Rupert Murdoch dropped his “outspoken” fiancé after proposing to her last month, according to Mediaite. The media mogul announced his engagement in The New York Post, which he owns in addition to Fox News through his international conglomerate, News Corp. The news came as a surprise to some after Murdoch exclaimed that he was happy with Ann Lesley Smith.
Smith was formerly married to the country singer Chester Smith until he died in 2008. She met Murdoch less than a year after he divorced Jerry Hall in 2022. Hall is an American model and actress who was reportedly a partner with Mick Jagger from 1977 to 1999. The two had four children.
Murdoch told gossip columnist Cindy Adams that he proposed to Smith on St. Patrick’s Day because he was one-fourth Irish. The Daily Mail reported that the engagement ring, an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire, cost around $2.5 million.
Nevertheless, the price of the ring was not enough to keep the engagement on and neither was the luck of the Irish. The couple reportedly broke off their engagement suddenly despite the whirlwind of affection they appeared to have for one another.
One of their first pictures together surfaced in January when they were vacationing in Barbados. The two generated some internal controversy when Murdoch’s children were worried about the future of their father’s empire. Vanity Fair reported that they were glad Smith did not have any children of her own for that reason.
The same controversy engulfed the business when his children were against the idea of having the children of Wendi Deng, his third wife, voting shares.
But a source close to the media mogul said that Murdoch’s views on Smith changed when she was outspoken about her evangelical views. A spokesperson for Murdoch has declined to comment on the matter.
