84-year-old media mogul Murdoch weds former supermodel

JournalismPakistan.com | Published: 5 March 2016

Rupert Murdoch married Jerry Hall in a low-key ceremony in London, marking his fourth marriage. The couple plans to celebrate with a service at St Bride's church, attended by their ten children.
Summary

LONDON: Rupert Murdoch wed former supermodel Jerry Hall in a low-key ceremony in central London Friday, the fourth marriage for the media mogul. The 84-year-old executive chairman of News Corp and owner of 21st Century Fox Inc, and Hall, 59, smiled happily for photographers after the ceremony at Spencer House, an 18th century mansion built for an ancestor of Princess Diana.

Hall was previously in a long-term relationship with Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. Murdoch, dressed in a navy suit, and Hall, who was wearing a pale-gray trench coat and flat shoes, began dating last summer after being introduced while in Australia and were first seen in public together at the Rugby Union World Cup Final in London in October.

They got engaged in January in Los Angeles where they had been attending Hollywood’s Golden Globes awards ceremony, announcing the news in a classified advert in the Times of London newspaper, one of the many titles his group owns. On Saturday, the couple were to celebrate the marriage with a service at London’s historic St Bride’s church, famed for its wedding-cake spire.

The spiritual home of British journalism, St Bride’s was designed by Christopher Wren, who was also responsible for nearby St Paul’s Cathedral. The church is located on Fleet Street, where Britain’s major newspapers were located from the 1700s to the 1980s. Murdoch himself hastened Fleet Street’s demise as a press hub when he moved his print works to east London.

“Within months the printing dinosaur that was Fleet Street was dead. By 1989 all the national newspapers had decamped as other proprietors followed Murdoch’s lead,” the church’s own website says.

Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that the couple’s 10 children from previous relationships would be at Saturday’s service, with the six daughters acting as bridesmaids. A native of Melbourne, Australia, Murdoch divorced his third wife, Wendi Deng, in 2013 after 14 years, saying their marriage had been irretrievably broken.

Deng is a former executive at Murdoch-owned Star TV in China. Texan model and actress Hall was married to Jagger for more than 20 years. However, in divorce proceedings in 1999, the British musician claimed they were never legally married. - Reuters

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