It’s been quite a year for 92-year-old media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in the romance department.
In April, the Fox News mogul ended his whirlwind engagement with Ann Lesley Smith, a one-time dental hygienist and conservative radio host from Modesto who reportedly favors “QAnon-style politics” and who has a pattern of marrying older, wealthy men, including the late John B. Huntington, the scion of one of San Francisco’s most prominent families.
Now, on Monday, comes a report that Murdoch has already moved on and has been enjoying a yachting vacation with Elena Zhukova, the former mother-in-law of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Her daughter, Dasha Zhukova, is the jet-set socialite who was formerly married to Abramovich and who has enjoyed close friendships with Ivanka Trump, Karlie Kloss and Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi Deng.
The Drudge Report broke the news of Murdoch’s latest romance, citing a source who said he has “the energy of people half his age,” the Daily Mail reported. The source also told The Drudge Report: “He just might be in love again.”
The Daily Mail also reported Monday that Murdoch and Elena Zhukova are cruising the Mediterranean aboard the legendary superyacht Christina O, which he has rented. As of Monday, the yacht was anchored off the coast of Corfu.
Given the global fascination with Murdoch’s love life, news outlets feverishly searched the name Elena Zhukova, and it’s likely there are some women out there who are being inundated with requests for comment Monday. The Drudge Report only said that Murdoch’s new romantic interest is a scientist.
The Daily Mail reported that Zhukova is a twice-divorced molecular biologist and specialist in diabetes. She has lived in America for more than three decades after leaving Russia in 1991 with her daughter, Dasha. Before retiring, Zhukova worked at the medical research unit in UCLA.
Sources told the Daily Mail that Zhukova spends a lot of time with her grandchildren by Dasha and Abramovich, who divorced in 2019. Dasha Zhukova is now married to Stavros Niarchos, the billionaire heir to the shipping dynasty.
A woman with an expertise in molecular biology and diabetes certainly sounds very different from Murdoch’s recent past partners. Then again, Elena Zhukova would have become familiar with the lifestyles of the very, very rich, courtesy of her daughter and her controversial ex-son-in-law.
The billionaire Abramovich was slapped with sanctions by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Unkraine in 2022. Abramovich amassed a fortune in Russia’s oil and aluminum industries following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. The European Union described him as “an oligarch who has close ties to Vladimir Putin” including “privileged access” to the Kremlin chief, connections the EU said had helped him maintain his assets, Reuters reported.
Murdoch was married to Deng, an entrepreneur, film producer and art collector, from 1999 to 2013. He next spent six years married to former supermodel Jerry Hall, the longtime ex-partner of Mick Jagger. That marriage suddenly ended in the summer of 2022, when Hall was “blindsided” by an email from Murdoch, saying he wanted to end the marriage, Vanity Fair reported in April.
Six months later, Hall and the rest of the world earned that Murdoch was dating Smith, the widow of the late Modesto-based TV mogul Chester Smith. Hall recognized Smith as a woman who had dined with her and Murdoch at their ranch in Carmel, Vanity Fair reported.
At the time, Smith was dating the ranch’s manager, Vanity Fair said. She also was a conservative radio host “with QAnon-style politics” who flattered the media mogul by telling him that he and Fox News were saving democracy. Hall recalled how Smith had offered to give Murdoch a teeth cleaning, Vanity Fair also reported.
Perhaps it’s some consolation to Hall that Murdoch pretty quickly dispatched Smith, a mere two weeks after announcing their engagement in late March. In breaking the news that Murdoch had called off the engagement, Vanity Fair writer Gabriel Sherman reported that Smith’s politics and religious views might have been too extreme even for the man who owns Fox News. A source close to Murdoch told Sherman that Murdoch had become “increasingly uncomfortable” with Smith’s “outspoken evangelical views.”
It’s also possible that Murdoch — or people close to him — had become increasingly uncomfortable with news reports that began circulating about Smith. Details about her personal history were sketchy, including where she was born and grew up. It also become known that she had been married at least twice to much-older men and that those marriages ended in bitter and protracted legal fights over money.
Murdoch certainly knows a lot more about Elena Zhukova’s past and politics, given her daughter’s association with his ex-wife. Of course, maybe the supposed romance isn’t serious: Murdoch and Zhukova are just “having fun together” and “keeping it casual,” as younger celebrity couples tend to say when they are discovered doing sleepovers at each other’s homes or going on yachting vacations together.
This story has been updated.