International Desk

The media mogul Rupert Murdoch is engaged for a sixth time, it emerged on Thursday, this time to Elena Zhukova, a retired scientist, according to The Guardian newspaper.

Murdoch's office announced that the 92-year-old is set to marry Zhukova, a 67-year-old retired molecular biologist, reports The Guardian quoting the New York Times as saying.
Last April, news reports emerged of Murdoch dating Zhukova just four months after he ended his two-week-long engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, a 67-year old conservative radio host.

Invitations for 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 Murdoch, who has been married four times before.

Murdoch met Zhukova through a large family gathering hosted by his third ex-wife, Wendi Deng, whom he stayed married 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 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.

Murdoch's 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 the book publisher HarperCollins.

The media mogul boasts a net worth of $8.96bn, according to Bloomberg.

Murdoch's new fiancee previously worked as a molecular diabetes specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. 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.

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.