Geriatric media mogul Murdoch calls off marriage
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former San Francisco police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith have called off their engagement, a source confirmed on Tuesday. The 92-year-old Fox Corp chairman and Smith had planned to marry this summer. It would have been his fifth marriage. Vanity Fair reported the breakup, citing one source close to Murdoch as saying he had grown uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views. Murdoch and Smith, 66, met in September at his vineyard Moraga in Bel Air, California, and he called her two weeks later, Murdoch told News Corp-owned New York Post, which broke the news of the engagement. Smith is a widow whose late husband was Chester Smith, a country singer, radio and TV executive. On March 17 in New York, Murdoch presented Smith with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring, according to 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,” Murdoch told the Post at the time. (Reuters)