Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch will not marry Ann Lesley Smith, according to multiple reports.
A source close to Murdoch, 92, first told Vanity Fair the couple called off their engagement just over two weeks after announcing their pending nuptials in the Murdoch-owned New York Post.
The outlet reported Murdoch had become “increasingly uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views.”
In March, Murdoch told the Post he proposed to Smith, 66, in New York City on St. Patrick’s Day. He said he met Smith, a former police chaplain, at his California vineyard last September, just one month after he’d finalized his divorce with fourth wife Jerry Hall.
“I was very nervous,” he said. “I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy.”
He presented Smith with an Asscher cut diamond solitaire ring that he personally selected, reportedly worth upwards of US$2.5 million.
The ex-fiancés originally planned to tie the knot late this summer.
Smith was formerly married to the late Chester Smith, an American country singer and TV executive. In March she called the engagement to Murdoch “a gift from God.”
Smith told the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2013 that she became an Evangelist after her first husband, John B. Huntington, allegedly became abusive. She said she had been suicidal until she discovered Jesus in a coffee shop. She later became a street preacher in Marin County, Calif.
“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 told CBN.
Australian-born Murdoch owns News Corp., a multinational mass media group that possesses hundreds of local, national and international media assets, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and book publisher HarperCollins. His net worth is estimated at US$17.2 billion.
Murdoch has been married four times. He first wed Australian flight attendant Patricia Booker in 1956. They divorced in 1967. Also in 1967, Murdoch married journalist Anna Mann, and they divorced in 1999.
That same year, Murdoch married Chinese-born entrepreneur Wendi Deng and later had three children. The couple divorced in 2013. Most recently, he married model Hall in 2016. They were together for six years until their divorce was finalized in August.