NEW YORK. A new flame for Rupert Murdoch. The tycoon was spotted on holiday on a yacht in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Corfu, with biologist Elena Zhukova, 66, mother of Roman Abramovich’s ex-wife, Dasha Zhukova. Between the two there seems to be the beginning of a sentimental bond. Murdoch may have “fell in love again”, some sources tell US media, describing the 92-year-old tycoon in splendid shape, with “the energy of a person half his age”.
Murdoch and Zhukova, a molecular biologist who is an expert in diabetes, met through Wendy Deng, the billionaire’s third wife, and Dasha Zhukova, who is Wendy’s best friend. The rumors of a possible new woman in the tycoon’s life comes a few months after the shock cancellation of his engagement to Anne Leslie Smith, with whom Murdoch was supposed to get married in recent months. The two were officially engaged in March, on St. Patrick’s Day. But that dream didn’t last long: despite living together, Murdoch and Leslie Smith decided to take different paths. According to sources close to the woman-widow of country singer Chester Smith-the breakup is linked to Leslie Smith’s confidentiality and not loving her to be constantly in the spotlight of her. “They talked about it and agreed it was best to go their separate ways,” some sources say. Other indiscretions instead refer to a deep irritation by Murdoch for the ex-girlfriend’s excessive frankness on her evangelical opinions and positions. For Murdoch the one with Leslie Smith would have been the fifth marriage, probably the last as the tycoon himself had admitted.
The appearance of a new possible woman alongside the billionaire thus draws attention once again to his love life and to the succession to the Murdoch empire, already the subject of discussions within the family: Elisabeth, Lachlan and James – the three eldest children – in in the past they had strongly opposed the hypothesis that Chloe and Grace, the daughters of Murdoch and his third wife Wendi Deng, could receive shares with voting rights in the family trust that controls the tycoon’s media empire.