Media mogul Rupert Murdoch set to marry for fifth time at 92

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, got engaged to former San Francisco police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith confirmed his spokesperson on Monday. This will be the 92-year-old media mogul's fifth marriage.

Murdoch told the News Corp-owned NY Post, which first reported the engagement, that he and Smith, 66, first met in September at his winery Moraga in Bel Air, California. Two weeks later, he contacted her, according to Murdoch. Smith is a widow whose late husband was radio and television executive and country artist Chester Smith.

According to the Post, Murdoch gave Smith an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring on March 17 in New York. In the late summer, they will get hitched.

Murdoch told the Post, “I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love, but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy.” 

In August, Murdoch and actress and model Jerry Hall finalised their divorce.

The ownership structure of the companies in which Murdoch has shares, such as Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News Channel and News Corp, is not likely to change as a result of his marriage. Murdoch owns around 40 per cent of the voting shares of each of News Corp. and Fox Corp. through a family trust with headquarters in Reno, Nevada.

In a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, Fox is now defending itself.

Dominion has accused the cable TV network of promoting disproven allegations that Dominion voting equipment were used to rig the election in favour of Joe Biden and against Republican Donald Trump, who lost the elections.

Fox has defended its reporting, saying that Trump and his lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.