bitchy | Rupert Murdoch & Ann Lesley Smith are over, just weeks after they got engaged

My father was fond of several English expressions, and one of his favorites was “no fool like an old fool.” So it is with Rupert Murdoch, forever unlucky in love. Three marriages down the drain, the last of which was his seemingly solid companionship-based marriage to Jerry Hall. They seemed surprisingly well-suited for each other, but I guess Jerry simply got tired of the old goat and she dumped his ass last year. Months later, Rupert started up with a 66-year-old named Ann Lesley Smith. They announced their engagement two weeks ago in the Murdoch-owned New York Post. Welp, it looks like they’re no longer engaged, you guys. Oh noes.

Wedding bells may not be ringing for Rupert Murdoch anytime soon. According to sources close to Murdoch, the 92-year-old Fox Corporation chairman and Ann Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former dental hygienist turned conservative radio host, have abruptly called off their engagement. Murdoch and Smith reportedly planned to marry this summer, less than a year after Murdoch finalized his divorce from his fourth wife, model-actor Jerry Hall. One source close to Murdoch said he had become increasingly uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views. A spokesperson for Rupert Murdoch declined to comment.

The breakup ends a whirlwind romance that generated headlines around the world. In January, Murdoch and Smith were first photographed vacationing in Barbados. The photos captured Smith helping a shirtless Murdoch out of the ocean. In February, Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal reported that Murdoch was set to buy a $30 million, 6,500-square-foot co-op on Central Park South, which could have been his and Smith’s New York residence. In March, Murdoch announced his engagement in the pages of his New York Post. “I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love—but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy,” he told gossip columnist Cindy Adams. Last week the Daily Mail reported that Murdoch had given Smith an 11-carat diamond engagement ring said to be worth upwards of $2.5 million.

Murdoch’s adult children from his second marriage to Anna—Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James—were reportedly relieved that Ann Lesley had no children of her own, which could have complicated the already-complicated succession battle over the future of the Murdoch empire. Murdoch’s third marriage to Wendi Deng in 1999—less than a month after his divorce from Anna—ignited a revolt from his adult children, who opposed allowing Murdoch and Deng’s daughters, Chloe and Grace, to receive voting shares on the family trust that controls the media empire.

[From Vanity Fair]

VF also included a passage about how, just days after the engagement announcement, various media outlets began trying to patch together Ann Lesley’s “patchy biography.” Her first marriage was to a man with family money, and she spent $65,000 a month on clothes. When they divorced, she became an abusive alcoholic, then she found Jesus, then she found a second husband – a country music singer named Chester Smith. After Smith’s death in 2008, Smith’s children accused her of financial elder abuse. There was a quiet settlement and everything was hushed up. That sounds like the thing which probably convinced Murdoch to walk away, the financial elder abuse stuff. But I’m sure her evangelical ranting and raving probably drove him crazy too. Some men are just unlucky in love, and they grow more foolish as they age. I’ve been trying to think of who he should marry next and I’ve got nothing. Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.