Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall announce engagement

Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall

MEDIA mogul Rupert Murdoch and actress-model Jerry Hall are to get married.

They announced their engagement in the births, marriages and deaths section of the Times newspaper, which is owned by Mr Murdoch’s News Corporation company.

It will be the fourth marriage for Mr Murdoch, 84, and the first for Miss Hall, 59, although she lived with singer Sir Mick Jagger for many years.

The new relationship reportedly began in the summer. A spokesman said: “They have loved these past months together.”

He added they were “thrilled to be getting married and excited about their future”.

Australian-born Mr Murdoch, who now has US nationality, split up with his third wife Wendi Deng in 2013.

American Miss Hall’s 23-year relationship with Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick, with whom she had four children, ended in 1999.

Mr Murdoch and Miss Hall were first spotted together in public in October at the Rugby World Cup final in London between Australia and New Zealand.

The notice in the paper reads: “Mr Rupert Murdoch, father of Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, James, Grace and Chloe Murdoch, and Miss Jerry Hall, mother of Elizabeth, James, Georgia and Gabriel Jagger, are delighted to announce their engagement.”

The Times reports the couple were introduced to each other in Australia by one of Mr Murdoch’s sisters and his niece.

It says the couple got engaged while in Los Angeles at the weekend, where they attended the Golden Globe awards ceremony.

Rupert Murdoch

Wealth: According to Forbes in 2015, Rupert Murdoch and his family have a net worth of $11.2 billion (£7.7bn), making him the 77th richest person on the planet.
Newspapers: Born in 1931, he inherited two Adelaide newspapers from his father at the age of 22 and built his media empire from there. Now executive chairman of News Corporation, Rupert and his family control 120 newspapers in five countries, including the Sun and the Times in the UK, and also own book publisher HarperCollins.
Television: The Murdoch family own a large cable TV network, including the Fox channels in the US. Rupert is also co-executive chairman, with his son Lachlan, of 21st Century Fox, and owns a large stake in broadcaster Sky.
 Personal life: He married Patricia Booker, a flight attendant from Melbourne, in 1956. They had one child, Prudence, and divorced in 1967. His second marriage to Glasgow-born journalist Anna Torv lasted 32 years, ending in 1999. They have three children, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James. His third marriage to Chinese-born businesswoman Wendy Deng (above) ended in 2013 after 14 years and two children, Grace and Chloe.
 Controversy: His battles with striking journalists in 1986 outside his newspapers’ Wapping headquarters heralded a revolution in Fleet Street. Some 5,000 staff lost their jobs, but the move also spelled an end to over-manning and restrictive practices. More than 20 years later, he was in the spotlight over the phone hacking scandal, infamously being attacked with a foam pie during a meeting with MPs.

Media commentator Steve Hewlett told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “the recent history of Rupert Murdoch’s liaisons” had been “genuinely vexed”, following his third marriage to Wendy Deng and the birth of their daughters, Grace and Chloe.

“There is a family trust which controls 40% of the voting shares in the Murdoch empire… the question was what would happen with the daughters of Wendy Deng,” he said.

“The children [from his second marriage] were very upset at the way that their mother had been treated. In order to let Grace and Chloe into the family trust, the others were paid a vast amount of money – it was reportedly in the region of $200 million-plus.”

On the possibility of any further complications, Mr Hewlett added: “I think Rupert Murdoch has achieved many amazing and quite remarkable things in his 84 years, but children with a woman of Jerry Hall’s age I think is possibly beyond even his capacity.”

According to Forbes in 2015, Rupert Murdoch and his family have a net worth of $11.2 billion

Jerry Hall

 Model: Born in Texas in 1956, Jerry left home as a teenager to pursue a modelling career and was reportedly spotted by an agent while sunbathing on the beach in St Tropez. By the late 70s, with her trademark long blonde hair, she was one of the most photographed models of the age, appearing on dozens of magazine front covers and commanding big fees. A regular at New York hotspots like Studio 54, she was the face of Yves Saint Laurent Opium perfume and Revlon cosmetics, and starred in several music videos.

Personal life: After hitting the big time as a model, she became engaged to Roxy Music star Bryan Ferry. She eventually left him for Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. The couple married in a Hindu ceremony in Bali in 1990 but the union was later declared invalid by a British court. The couple had four children, Elizabeth, Georgia, Gabriel and James, and split in 1999.
Actress: Hall has appeared in various television, film and stage roles, including a stint as Mrs Robinson in The Graduate in London’s West End. She was a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, partnering Anton du Beke.
Wealth: She has an estimated net worth of $15 million (£10.3m). BBC