The 93-year-old media mogul and his future fifth wife, 67-year-old Elena Zhukova, were brought together by his ex-third wife, who cheated on him with Tony Blair

Rupert Murdoch marries Abramovich’s ex-mother-in-law

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who will turn 93 on March 11, intends to marry 67-year-old Elena Zhukova, a molecular biologist and former mother-in-law of Russian businessman Roman Abramovich. This was reported by The New York Times (NYT) with reference to Murdoch’s office. Murdoch and Zhukova have been in a relationship since the summer of 2023, the publication writes. According to the newspaper, the couple is now engaged and their wedding is scheduled for June.

The Washington Post clarifies, citing a source close to Murdoch, that the wedding ceremony should take place on June 1. The event will take place at the media mogul’s Moraga vineyard estate in California, his representative told The New York Times.

Mr Murdoch was married four times and engaged six times. Last year he ended his relationship with his fiancée Anne Leslie Smith just two weeks after he proposed to her.

The media mogul met Ms Zhukova last summer through his famous third wife Wendy Deng Murdoch and quickly decided he intended to marry her, a spokesman told The New York Times on Thursday.

Last August, following a whirlwind romance, Ms Zhukova and Mr Murdoch cruised the Mediterranean on megayacht Chrtina O. with Murdoch’s daughters and Ms Deng on what was believed to be a family holiday.

On this yacht, the rental of which costs $767,000 a week, Aristotle Onassis wooed Jackie Kennedy, and Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly held a wedding reception.

Mr Murdoch’s latest engagement comes five months after he stepped down as chairman of his media empire News Corpwhich owns hundreds of local and national publications around the world.

His new bride has extensive connections and a fortune comparable even to his own.

The former scientist moves in the circles of Greek shipping magnates, the exclusive international art world and the shadowy circle of oligarchs linked to Vladimir Putin (*international criminal).

Ms. Zhukova, who is twice divorced, moved to the United States from Moscow shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The diabetes specialist, a Jewish Russian-American, worked in medical research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her ex-husband Alexander Zhukovwho is believed to be a relative of Marshal Zhukov, who commanded the Red Army during World War II, is currently a billionaire and British citizen living in London.

The oil and transport tycoon’s tax schemes have come under scrutiny after information was leaked from “Panama Archives” he turned out to be connected to a network of offshore companies.

Dashadaughter of Alexander and Elena, married Roman Abramovichone of Russia (*aggressor country)’s richest men, was twenty in 2008, while Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea football club, was forty and had recently divorced for the second time.

Elena Zhukova (center) and Dasha Zhukova (right) at the Venice Biennale (2011)

Mr. Abramovich made a fortune in oil during the turbulent 1990s, then moved to London and used his billions to finance Chelsea’s sporting success. In 2022, he was forced to sell the club after the British government sanctioned him for his “apparent links” to Vladimir Putin (*international criminal) after the illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

During their ten-year marriage, the couple invested huge amounts of money in creating the famous private collections of 300 works contemporary art, valued at almost a billion dollars.

As part of the settlement, Abramovich transferred property worth about $92 million to Dasha, including a four-story mansion in Manhattan.

Although their marriage did not last longDasha’s influence and authority in the art world have been preserved.

Dasha now lives in New York and serves on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as on the boards of the Manhattan cultural center The Shed and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

She publishes a biannual art magazine, in which she collaborates with artists such as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Dasha, now 42, remarried in 2020 to Stavros Niarchos III, heir to the Greek shipping empire founded by the grandfather for whom he is named.

My grandfather, who was at odds with Aristotle Onassis, made his fortune on supertankers after the Suez crisis.

He was married five times, including to the daughter of Henry Ford II, the automobile magnate who was Henry Ford’s eldest grandson. He was also married to Aristotle Onassis’s first wife, who was the sister of his third wife and Marcionissa Blandford.

Stavros Niarchos III’s father, Philip, inherited the family’s art collection, which includes Pablo Picasso’s self-portrait “Yo Picasso.” It is assumed that Philip added Van Gogh and works by Basquiat and Warhol to the collection.

His wife, Stravros’ mother Victoria Guinness, is a descendant of the banking branch of the famous Irish Guinness family. While Arthur Guinness became a brewer, his brother Samuel and his family made their fortune in banking.

Music mogul

The new relationship was confirmed when Stavros spent New Year’s Eve 2018 with Dasha in Peru, traveling through the Amazon with music mogul David Geffen and supermodel Karlie Kloss. They married in Paris and have one child together.

With a daughter moving in such famous circles, it was perhaps only a matter of time before Elena caught the eye of one of the big beasts of the international scene.

But a love affair with Mr Murdoch is believed to have originated from an unlikely source – his ex-wife Wendi Deng.

Dasha and Ms Deng reportedly became “great friends” after she moved to New York, where Mr Murdoch also has property.

Ms Deng, now 55, was the tycoon’s third wife. They married in 1999, 17 days after Mr Murdoch’s second divorce was finalized.

She was 30 and he was 68. They had two children and divorced in 2013 after 14 years of marriage.

Hearings on the wiretapping case

Two years earlier, she famously came to Mr Murdoch’s defense during a parliamentary hearing into the murder case. telephone wiretapping he was attacked by a protester with cream pies. She may continue to monitor the well-being of her ex-husband.

There is speculation that it was the friendship between Dasha and Ms Deng that led to the first meeting between Ms Zhukova and Mr Murdoch.

“They met through Wendy and Dasha,” one source told MailOnline.

Elena Zhukova and Rupert Murdoch

The Australian newspaper magnate divorced his fourth wife, former supermodel Jerry Hall, in 2022 after six years of marriage. Mr Murdoch is understood to have notified her of the divorce in an email that read: “Jerry, unfortunately I have decided to end our relationship marriage,” he wrote.

“We’ve certainly had some good times, but I have a lot to do… My New York lawyer will contact you immediately.”

Planned summer wedding

Less than a year after splitting from Sir Mick Jagger’s ex-wife, Mr Murdoch became engaged to Anne Leslie Smith, a retired dental hygienist. They were pictured boarding a private jet, with her showing off a huge $2 million diamond ring. Just days later, Mr Murdoch abruptly ended his engagement ahead of a planned summer wedding.

It was reported that the reason could be her “outspoken evangelical views.”

But Mr Murdoch is clearly not one to enjoy a bachelor lifestyle, nor lectures on religion. He has been married four times, engaged six times and has six children.

Will Mr Murdoch live happily ever after, or will he be in for more romantic adventures as he approaches 100 years of age?

In Madame Zhukova, a glamorous scientist with extensive connections and experience with business titans and the super-rich, he may well have found the fifth and final Mrs. Murdoch.

The billionaire’s last wife, former model Jerry Hall, was 59 years old at the time of the wedding, Murdoch was 84. After living together for six years, the couple separated. They wrote that the tycoon’s older children (he has six children in total) were dissatisfied with the marriage, believing that Jerry was exploiting him and that her feelings were not sincere enough. The couple divorced relatively peacefully; the former model did not lay claim to what they had acquired together during six years of marriage (and they had already acquired something) and was satisfied with the considerable compensation.

The billionaire’s new passion turned out to be Roman Abramovich’s former mother-in-law, the grandmother of his two children and the mother of Dasha Zhukova, Elena. Until now, there was not a single photograph of her on the Internet; a minimum of information could be found. She divorced Dasha’s father when she was 10 years old, lived in the USA and worked as a microbiologist at the University of California. Then she retired and began taking care of her grandchildren and photography as a hobby.

[…] Murdoch’s acquaintance with Elena was arranged by Dasha Zhukova and her close friend Wendi Deng – the last wife of a billionaire who cheated on him … with the former British prime minister Tony Blair. However, after 9 years, Murdoch no longer holds a grudge against her and continues to communicate.

Rupert Murdoch’s wives

Murdoch first married in 1956 to Australian Patricia Booker. She was a flight attendant, and their first meeting happened, of course, in the sky when Murdoch was flying on an Australian Airlines plane. Business class passengers were served by a charming girl, with whom the then young businessman was head over heels in love. They lived together for 11 years, after which Murdoch left the family for Scotswoman Anna Mann. It was a typical office romance: Anna worked as a journalist, he was her boss. And this marriage became the longest in Murdoch’s biography: they lived together for three decades.

Anna was aware of her husband’s love of love, but forgave him for his infidelity. She believed that someday her middle-aged husband would calm down, but she underestimated his agility: in 1999, 68-year-old Murdoch also left his second wife, exchanging her for a young Chinese woman, Wendi Deng. Anna Mann received a billion dollar compensation, and 30-year-old Wendy received a huge diamond and the opportunity to have a luxurious wedding 17 days after Murdoch received a divorce certificate.

The third marriage cost Murdoch a lot of gray hair. He tolerated many of Wendy’s antics, including even her affair with then British Prime Minister Tony Blair. But he filed for divorce only when it became known about her connections with Chinese intelligence. And just in case, he ended his long-term friendship with Blair, who became the godfather of one of the children of the broken couple.

Murdoch grieved for a relatively short time: three years later he walked former model Jerry Hall down the aisle. A few days before the groom’s 85th birthday, the couple got married in London. The bride was 59 at that time, and she had already been married to musician and performer Mick Jagger. Last August, Hall and Murdoch split quietly and without scandal.

By the way

The yacht Chrtina O, rented by Murdoch, on which he was caught with Elena Zhukova, is named after the daughter of another famous heartthrob, Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, who turned the head of opera singer Maria Callas and the widow of American President Kennedy, Jacqueline. Onassis’s main business rival was his compatriot Stavros Niarchos. His grandson and full namesake is now the husband of Daria Zhukova.

How the families of Elena Zhukova and Rupert Murdoch are intertwined