Rupert Murdoch has been spotted soaking up the sun alongside a potential new love interest, a new report claims.
The 92-year-old media tycoon was seen lounging aboard a yacht with a woman named Elena Zhukova, according to The Drudge Report.
‘He’s got the energy of people half his age,’ a source told Drudge. ‘He just might be in love again.’
Murdoch’s yacht, Vertigo, is currently sailing off the coast of the Greek island of Kefalonia, though it is not known whether the pair are holidaying there.
The report comes just months after Murdoch split from former dental hygienist Anne Leslie Smith, 66.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
Describing their whirlwind romance in April as a ‘gift from God’ the couple said they planned to wed in the late summer but abruptly called off their wedding after a friend close to the couple said Ms Smith had struggled with the publicity.
‘She just could not cope with being in the public eye. She is very private,’ they said. ‘They sat down and talked and agreed it was better for them to part.
MailOnline has contacted Murdoch’s representatives at NewsCorp for comment.
Rupert Murdoch at his annual party at Spencer House, St James’ Place in London. Picture date: Thursday June 22, 2023
Rupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith at the American Australian Association event on March 16, 2023 in NYC
The media tycoon began dating Ann Leslie Smith (seen together on vacation in January) at the end of last year – but the pair split in April
Murdoch moves quickly. His engagement to and subsequent split from Smith and April came less than a year after his divorce from fourth wife Jerry Hall was finalised.
He has six children from his previous marriages: daughter Prudence MacLeod, now 64, with his first wife Patricia Booker, daughter Elisabeth, now 53, and sons Lachlan, now 50, and James, now 49, with his second wife Anna Mann, and daughter Grace, now 21, and Chloe, now 19, who he shares with his third wife Wendi Deng.
Murdoch and his fourth wife, former supermodel Hall, did not have any children together during their six-year marriage, which ended last year.
The pair tied the knot in London in March 2016 in a very low-key ceremony at Spencer House, which overlooks Green Park, after a whirlwind five-month romance.
Murdoch married his first wife, former flight attendant Patricia, in 1956, however the pair split in 1967, nine years after the birth of their only child, Prudence.
That same year, he tied the knot with his second wife, Anna, a Glasgow-born journalist to whom he was married for 32 years, before their divorce in 1999.
As part of their divorce settlement, Anna was awarded $1.7 billion, including $10 million in cash, according to CNBC.
Murdoch went on to marry Wendi just 17 days after he divorced second wife Anna. At the time of their wedding Murdoch was 68, while Wendi was just 30 years old.
That marriage lasted 14 years, before it was announced that the pair were divorcing, with a News Corp spokesperson revealing in June 2013 that their union had been ‘irretrievably broken for more than six months’.
Murdoch finalised his divorce from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall (seen on their wedding day), in August 2022 following six years of marriage
Murdoch has been married four times in the past. He wed his third wife Wendi Deng in June 1999 and the pair had two daughters, Chloe and Grace (seen in 2019), before divorcing in 2013
Murdoch married his second wife, journalist Anna Torv, in 1967, shortly after he divorced his first spouse Patricia Booker. Murdoch had three children with Anna: daughter Elisabeth and sons Lachlan and James (pictured together)
Murdoch’s most recent divorce from Hall – although swift – was not without its controversies, particularly after it was revealed that the supermodel had asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to cancel the divorce petition in early August.
But hours after news of the development broke, it emerged that Hall and Murdoch had settled their break-up agreement and ‘remained good friends’.
The couple had been together for six years when their split was reported in June of last year. A newspaper claimed that the media tycoon ended their marriage via an email which Hall is said to have received while waiting for him to arrive in the UK.
Hall responded by filing for divorce on July 1 in Los Angeles rather than the UK, where they were married.
She then hired a former Met Police anti-terrorism officer to serve Murdoch with the divorce papers at RAF Brize Norton on July 4, after he attended his granddaughter’s wedding nearby.
In her original petition, she said she did not have his full financial information and was seeking it.
In December 2021, just seven months before the news of their impending divorce was reported, Hall and Murdoch purchased a $200 million cattle ranch – called Beaverhead – in Montana, which was previously owned by oil baron Fred Koch and his children.
The purchase of the 340,000-acre ranch, which is located close to Yellowstone National Park, was the priciest ranch sale in Montana history.
In addition to the newly-purchased ranch, Murdoch also owns a $28.8 million estate and winery in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, a ranch in California, a four-story penthouse in New York City that is believed to be worth around $72 million, and a 25,000-acre sheep and cattle farm, called Cavan Station, in his native Australia.
Forbes also reported in 2021 that Murdoch had at one point owned two properties in the UK: an 11-bedroom mansion in Oxfordshire, and an apartment in London.
Although details of Hall and Murdoch’s divorce settlement or paperwork have not been made public, it is likely that their split was among one of the most expensive in the world – a less-than honorable title that Murdoch has already earned in the past, thanks to his $1.7 billion divorce from second wife Anna.