Media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s engagement to conservative radio host Ann Lesley Smith has ended, according to reports released Tuesday.
Sources close to Murdoch, 92, told Vanity Fair that he and Smith abruptly called off their engagement. The couple were due to wed in the summer of 2023, less than a year after Murdoch finalized his divorce from former model Jerry Hall.
The couple announced their engagement in March after being photographed on vacation with Smith in Barbados a month or so earlier. He popped the question on St. Patrick’s Day in New York City, and published the news in his own news outlet, the New York Post, days later.
Rupert Murdoch & Christian minister/right-wing radio host! Ann Lesley Smith have called off their engagement after 2 weeks
It would have been his fifth marriage
“1 source close to Murdoch said he had become uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views.” #MorningJoe pic.twitter.com/RaAEYU4sI7
— Popitics (@Popitics1) April 5, 2023
Reports suggest Murdoch gave Smith an 11-carat diamond worth more than $2.5 million. But things apparently started to fall apart when the media started digging into Smith’s history. After her first marriage to wealthy businessman John B. Huntington ended due to alleged abuse, Smith found Jesus and became a street preacher in Marin County, California.
“When you let the Lord take control of your life, you can make it. Out of the ruins you can rise and let the oil of his anointing just be all over you,” she said in the past to CBN, Vanity Fair noted. At least one source told Vanity Fair that Murdoch had become uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken Evangelical perspectives.
Her second marriage ended when her husband, Chester Smith, broadcaster and country music singer, died in 2008. Smith was accused by her step-daughters of “financial elder abuse.” (RELATED: ‘Screw Everyone’: Journalist Who Blew Up Her Life For ‘Most Hated Man In America’ Is Finally Explaining Herself)
Murdoch has been married four times and has six children from his first three marriages, the BBC noted. He had previously said he and Smith were “looking forward to spending the second half” of their lives together.