Media

Rupert Murdoch gets engaged to retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova

Sixth engagement for media mogul (92) comes five months after he announced he was stepping down from his media empire

Rupert Murdoch is engaged for a sixth time. Photograph: Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times
Rupert Murdoch is engaged for a sixth time. Photograph: Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times
Maya Yang
Fri Mar 08 2024 - 06:39

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch (92) is engaged for a sixth time, it emerged on Thursday, this time to Elena Zhukova, a retired scientist.

Mr Murdoch’s office announced he is set to marry Ms Zhukova (67), a retired molecular biologist, according to the New York Times.

Last April, news reports emerged of Mr Murdoch dating Ms Zhukova just four months after he ended his two-week-long engagement to Ann Lesley Smith (67), a conservative radio host.

Invitations for Mr Murdoch’s wedding, which will be held at Moraga, his California vineyard and estate, have already been sent out, the Times reports, citing a representative for Mr Murdoch, who has been married four times before.

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The media tycoon met Ms Zhukova through a large family gathering hosted by his third ex-wife, Wendi Deng, whom he stayed married to for 14 years before filing for divorce in 2013.

Her 42-year-old daughter, Dasha Zhukova, is a Russian-American art collector and philanthropist who was previously married to Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch and former owner of the Premier League football club Chelsea.

News of Mr Murdoch’s latest engagement comes just five months after he announced that he was stepping down from his media empire, which he built after his father handed him his first newspaper.

His publicly traded and New York-based company News Corp owns hundreds of local, national and international digital news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Sky News Australia, as well as book publisher HarperCollins.

The media mogul boasts a net worth of $8.96 billion (€8.19 billion), according to Bloomberg.

Mr Murdoch’s new fiancee previously worked as a molecular diabetes specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. Ms Zhukova, who originally hails from Russia and once described her family as being part of the “usual, normal Moscow intelligentsia”, was married to Alexander Zhukov, a Russian-born British billionaire energy investor.

Ms Murdoch’s last wife was the former supermodel Jerry Hall, whom he divorced in 2022. His other previous wives were Wendi Deng, Anna Murdoch Mann and Patricia Booker. He has six children.

The wedding this summer will come after a year of setbacks for the Murdoch empire in 2023, including a $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and the voting equipment company Dominion.

The settlement ended a dispute over whether the network and its parent company knowingly broadcast false and outlandish allegations that Dominion was involved in a plot to steal the 2020 US election. – Guardian