Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, 93, marries 5th wife Elena Zhukova, 67, in ceremony at his California vineyard
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has married for the fifth time at age 93, tying the knot with a retired molecular biologist a quarter century younger than him.
Murdoch and Elena Zhukova, a 67-year-old Russian-born retired molecular biologist, married on Saturday in a ceremony at his vineyard estate in Bel Air, California. Photographs of the newly married couple were released by Murdoch’s News Corp.
Photographs published in The Sun, the British tabloid owned by Murdoch, show the couple posing and smiling – he in a black suit and yellow tie and she in an off-the-shoulder white gown as she clutched a bouquet of lilies of the valley.
The couple announced their engagement in March.
Zhukova is the ex-wife of Alexander Zhukov, a billionaire energy investor and Russian politician. Their daughter Dasha was previously married to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who used to own the English Premier League football club Chelsea.
Jet-set guests at the nuptials included Robert Kraft, 82, the owner of the New England Patriots US football team, and his 50-year-old wife Dana Blumberg, news reports said.
Murdoch had previously been married four times, most recently to model Jerry Hall, the long-time partner of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.
His roller-coaster personal life is often fodder for the tabloid newspaper industry that he helped foster on three continents.
Last year, Murdoch announced his engagement to dental hygienist-turned-conservative radio host Ann Lesley Smith, but called off the planned nuptials less than a month later.
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 Torv, a newspaper reporter, were together more than 30 years before divorcing in 1999. His third marriage to Wendi Deng ended in 2013.
The Australia-born Murdoch, whose media empire includes The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and other influential outlets, and his family have a network of about US$20 billion, according to Forbes.
Murdoch handed over control of his global media empire to son Lachlan last November, shifting to an emeritus status.
