The news is bad for Rupert Murdoch, for he and Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger‘s famous ex, are set to divorce, according to a report from The New York Times. The publication noted that “two people with knowledge of the decision” spoke with them on the split between the 91-year-old Rupert and 65-year-old Jerry, but only if they could “speak anonymously to discuss a personal matter.” Apparently, sources close to Murdoch said they were surprised to hear of this split from Jerry Hall. HollywoodLife has reached out for comment on this report and will update this post with any additional information.
Rupert and Jerry wed on March 4, 2016, a week short of his 85th birthday, in London. This will be the fourth divorce for Murdoch, who was previously married to Wendi Deng, an entrepreneur, and investor, from 1999 to 2014. Murdoch divorced his second wife, Anna Mann, a former newspaper reporter, in 1999, after more than three decades together. His first wife was Patricia Booker, an Australian model, whom he divorced in 1965.
Jerry was famously involved with Mick Jagger. She even married the Rolling Stones frontman in a 1990 ceremony. However, the union was annulled nine years later over missing paperwork. Thus, Mick’s marriage count is only at 1, officially, and that was to Bianca Jagger. However, Mick and Jerry do share four children together.
This alleged split between Murdoch and Hall will not likely affect his media empire. Per the NYT: “The Murdoch family’s shares in the companies Mr. Murdoch founded reside in a strictly managed trust. Mr. Murdoch splits voting rights over that trust with his four oldest children — Lachlan, Elisabeth, James, and Prudence — and has arranged them so that he can never be outvoted.” However, if the split ends up costing him, the NYT suggests it might “reverberate throughout his business empire.”
During the early days of the marriage, “aides and people close to the family” said he was “happily devoting more time to his new wife,” per the NYT. This allowed his children, specifically his successor, Lachlan, to “assert themselves at the top of the corporate hierarchy.” Murdoch even left Twitter in 2016, saying that he felt like “the luckiest AND happiest man in the world.”