Who is Elena Zhukova, Rupert Murdoch’s new fiancée?

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is a firm believer that becoming older doesn’t stop someone from finding new love.

His office announced on Thursday that the 92-year-old would marry his 67-year-old girlfriend, Elena Zhukova, a retired molecular biologist whom he began dating in the summer, as per the New York Times (NYT).

It would be his sixth engagement and fifth marriage.

Murdoch’s dramatic breakup and repeated romances have become standard tabloid fodder throughout his career, turning up on the pages of rival gossip papers to his own.

Here’s all we know about Murdoch’s new girlfriend.

Who is Elena Zhukova?

Elena Zhukova, who originally hails from Russia, is a retired molecular diabetes specialist. She moved to the US towards the end of the Soviet Union.

Speaking to the New Yorker magazine in September 2010, she once referred to her family as belonging to the “usual, normal Moscow intelligentsia.”

The 67-year-old was previously married to Russian-born British billionaire energy investor Alexander Zhukov for three years.

Together, the couple had a 42-year-old daughter, Dasha Zhukova, a Russian-American art collector and philanthropist. Her daughter was earlier married to Roman Abramovich, a Russian businessman and former Chelsea football club owner.

On the work front, the NYT notes that Murdoch’s new fiancée previously worked at the University of California, Los Angeles as a molecular diabetes specialist.

The wedding

News of Murdoch’s relationship with Zhukova surfaced in April of last year, a mere four months after he called off his two-week engagement to conservative radio host Ann Lesley Smith .

Dailymail claims that Australian-born Murdoch first met Zhukova at a sizable family get-together thrown by Wendi Deng, his third ex-wife, with whom he was married for 14 years until divorcing her in 2013.

According to the NYT, which quotes a representative for the billionaire, invitations to Murdoch’s next wedding have already been sent out. The ceremony will take place at his California vineyard and estate, Moraga, in June.

Stepping down from the empire

The announcement of Murdoch’s new engagement came just five months after he announced he was leaving his media empire, which he founded after receiving his first newspaper from his father in the 1950s.

The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Sky News Australia, and HarperCollins, a book publisher, are just a few of the hundreds of local, national, and worldwide digital news outlets owned by Murdoch’s publicly traded News Corp, based in New York.

This summer’s wedding also follows the media empire’s 2023 year of disappointments, which included a $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion, a voting equipment company. A legal battle over whether the network and its parent company intentionally broadcast outlandish and deceptive claims that Dominion was part of a scheme to rig the 2020 US election was resolved by the settlement.

Bloomberg reports that the media tycoon has an impressive net worth of $8.96 billion.

In 2022, Murdoch got divorced from his last wife, Jerry Hall, a former supermodel. His other previous wives were media mogul Wendi Deng, former journalist Anna Torv and flight attendant Patricia Booker. He is the father of six children.

With inputs from agencies