Fox News has always been fond of Russian talking points, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that the retired co-chairman of the Fox Corporation and the executive chairman of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, is engaged to the the former wife of a Russian oligarch.
He may be a shriveled husk, but he’s a husk who desperately needs the love of a good woman! As one of his friends anonymously told the Sydney Morning Herald, “He doesn’t like to be alone, especially since he stepped back from the business.”
That’s for dang sure! The 93-year-old’s been married four times already. His most recent engagement, to a born-again Christian, radio host and dental hygienist from Modesto named Ann Lesley Smith, came less than a year after his divorce from Jerry Hall, yes that Jerry Hall, was finalized. That love match — Ann Lesley, not Jerry — pooped out once he realized she was crackers enough to actually believe what she heard on Fox News. The QAnon quackery was apparently fine, but it all went too far when the couple had Tucker Carlson over for dinner, where she excruciatingly gushed over Little Lord Fishsticks, and at one point covered her hand with his and said, “I believe you’re a prophet from God.”
“Obviously a wise woman,” said Carlson, trying to joke. “No, it’s true,” she insisted. She would prove it, she said, and got up from the table and returned with a Bible. She then read passages she had previously noted presaging Carlson’s arrival in this world, his Christian purpose, and the message he would bring mankind.
Or there’s the Wonkette version, should you prefer it, which you do:
Talk about a bonerkill! Maybe take more time to get to know somebody before you try to wife them? But at 94, a lot of time he ain’t got. Fortunately Rupert’s new bride-to-be, Elena Zhukova, 67, already comes with Jerry Hall-levels of experience in knowing how to please rich and soulless men. Fittingly, the two lovebirds have been sailing around the Mediterranean lately on the Christina O, which rents for about $800,000 a week.
Zhukova, a retired biologist, was previously married to a Russian oligarch, Alexander Radkin Zhukov, who has his fingers in multiple Russian company pies and in 2001 was detained in Italy and spent six months in jail over accusations that he worked with the Russian mafia to smuggle massive caches of arms (he denies this and was never charged).
Zhukova also shares a daughter with Zhukov, Dasha Zhukova, who for 10 years was married to Roman Abramovich. Abramovich is the ninth richest person in the world, worth about $9.7 billion, and is known as “Putin’s backchannel to the West.” You may remember Roman as the former owner of the Chelsea Football Club, a British soccer team, which he sold before sanctions hit, and also the owner of $1.3 billion worth of boats that he kept moving around the world to avoid their seizure. Dasha and Roman have two kids together, and since 2019 she has been married to Stavros Niarchos III, that Greek shipping heir who was dating Mary-Kate Olson until he left her for Paris Hilton. Then Mary-Kate married and divorced the brother of the former Prime Minister of France, because apparently the eye-poppingly rich are faced with a huge dong shortage.
Dasha is also good pals with Ivanka, who met her through Rupert’s third wife, Wendi Deng, who also introduced him to Elena, because she’s a very social person.
Remember Wendi? She blocked Rupert from being hit by a flying pie at his 2011 phone-hacking hearing, which made him sad because he was ‘masculated, see second giant link below, and (see first link below!) has enough ties to Chinese government interests that the US State Department warned Jared and Ivanka about her in 2017, to which they were surely like, “great, invite her to more parties!” Apparently in the teens Rebecca was obsessed with chronicling the ladygarden of Wendi Deng! Shoot, we’ll add one more!
SO SO LONG AGO:
AND ALSO!
ONE MORE!
CAN’T HELP IT, ONE MORE AGAIN!
Wendi was possibly the toughest of his wives, and let’s watch that pie slap that so offended Murdoch again!
SMACK!!
Finding true love is tough, and we should all be so lucky to do it five times! The happy couple will reportedly marry in June at Rupert’s California vineyard. No word if thirst trap Tucker Carlson will attend.