Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch will no longer tie the knot for the fifth time at the age of 92 years, with multiple reports detailing the end for his planned forthcoming nuptials.
Murdoch was engaged to Ann Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former police chaplain in San Francisco and widow of American country singer and media executive Chester Smith.
Vanity Fair reports the two will now no longer be walking down the aisle together.
The wedding was expected to take place in late summer, and the couple had been hoping to spend their time between California, Montana, New York and the UK.
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.
File/Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., left, and Lachlan Murdoch, co-chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., arrive for a morning session during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on Thursday, July 12, 2018. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty)
Last week the Daily Mail reported Murdoch had given Smith an 11-carat diamond engagement ring said to be worth upwards of $2.5 million.
The Australian-born Murdoch is the chairman of Fox Corp. and executive chairman of News Corp.
It’s unclear what happened between Murdoch and Smith since the engagement was announced. A spokesperson for Murdoch declined to comment when approached by Vanity Fair.
Murdoch divorced his fourth wife, model Jerry Hall, last August after six years of marriage.
His third marriage to Wendi Deng had ended in 2013.
File/Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp and co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, and Jerry Hall arrive at the Sun Valley Resort of the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference July 10, 2018 in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
File/Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., left, and his wife Wendi Deng arrive for the morning session at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on Thursday, July 12, 2012. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty)
Murdoch, who has six children, was first married to Patricia Booker, an Australian flight attendant, whom he divorced in the late 1960s.
He and his second wife, Anna, a newspaper reporter, were together more than 30 years before divorcing in 1999.