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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.”
They were “thrilled to be getting married and excited about their future”, he added.
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 Jagger, 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.
Actress Joan Collins tweeted a picture of herself and Miss Hall, saying: “The future “Mrs. M” glowing about being #engaged to her new beau! #fiance #Congratulations”.
The couple were introduced to each other in Australia by one of Mr Murdoch’s sisters and his niece, The Times reports.
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: He inherited two Adelaide newspapers from his father at the age of 22 and built a media empire. 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 up to 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
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 two daughters.
“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.”
Jerry Hall
- Model: Born in Texas in 1956, she left home as a teenager to pursue a modelling career and was reportedly spotted by an agent while sunbathing in St Tropez. By the late 70s, she was one of the most photographed models, appearing on dozens of magazine covers. 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 left him for Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger (above). 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
- Wealth: She has an estimated net worth of $15m
BBC