Rupert Murdoch Marries for the Fifth Time
Rupert Murdoch, who retired from the boards of Fox and News Corporation last year, walked down an outdoor aisle under blue skies to exchange vows on Saturday with Elena Zhukova, his fifth bride, at Moraga, his Tuscan-style vineyard estate in the hills of the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Ms. Zhukova, 67, carried a bouquet of white flowers and wore an ankle-length, off-the-shoulder white dress with a square neckline, reportedly designed by the London-based designer Emilia Wickstead; Mr. Murdoch, 93, wore a dark suit with sneakers. Notable guests caught by paparazzi on the way into the ceremony included Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, and Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp.
The couple met through Mr. Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi Deng, according to The Daily Mail, which first reported their relationship last summer. Ms. Zhukova is a retired molecular biologist who immigrated to the United States from Moscow in 1991, just months before the Soviet Union collapsed. She was previously married to Alexander Zhukov, the billionaire energy investor.
There have been few public details about the couple’s courtship, with representatives for Mr. Murdoch staying mum, but The Daily Mail reported that shortly after meeting, Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Zhukova spent weeks vacationing together in the Mediterranean aboard the Christina O, a yacht that once belonged to Aristotle Onassis. Their engagement was announced in March.
Mr. Murdoch’s fifth marriage comes after a called-off engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, who is a retired dental hygienist and a conservative radio host. Last spring, he proposed to Ms. Smith but broke off the engagement after less than a month.
Ms. Zhukova’s marital history is less well documented. She met her first husband, Mr. Zhukov, now a British citizen, when both were students in the Soviet Union. Their marriage, during which they had a daughter, the entrepreneur and socialite Dasha Zhukova, lasted three years, according to The New Yorker.
