Murdoch uses women to build his self-image
AFTER new proposals to allow assisted dying to terminally ill patients with six months to live, along comes Rupert Murdoch to remind us that life is for the living. Granted the nonagenarian, who just got engaged to retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova and is all set for a summer wedding, has more reasons to live than most of his contemporaries.
Most of his generation have either shuffled off this mortal coil or are in the process of winding down, often from an antiseptic care home on the edge of the M50 with an ensuite bathroom and a physiotherapist on call. Or its equivalent.
Rupert has enough landed estates to take in our homeless population although he surrendered his Oxfordshire pile in his divorce from his fourth wife Jerry Hall, a piece of real estate that still had its surveillance cameras in situ, sending footage back to Fox Headquarters.
HIS treatment of Hall, who he ditched by email while instructing her to deal with his lawyers from then on was lousy, even by Murdoch’s notoriously mean standards. Still, it didn’t put off the ladies. No sooner had he dismissed Hall than he was engaged for a fortnight to Anne Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former dental hygienist turned conservative radio host with fanatical QAnon-style politics.
The frantic turnaround of girlfriends and the ruthlessness about dispensing with women he wants shot of is the behaviour of a lovesick teenager more in love with the idea of being in love than with the person they are with.
Most people who have been around the block as many times as Rupert are more cautious about relationships.
But what is a touch of emotional regression at the age of 92 and mixed in with a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, all of which, Vanity Fair claims, have afflicted him?
The toll of illnesses hasn’t spoiled his appetite for life, the relentless drive, enhanced but never quite explained by a team of medics on speed dial.
Comedian Mrs Merton famously asked Debbie McGee what she saw in the millionaire Paul Daniels, but Murdoch’s billions don’t quite explain his appeal for the ladies. His fortune is tied up in trust funds for his kids and he can hardly be accused of being a walking ATM machine. Jerry Hall was told to vacate their main residence within 30 days of his shock email and to show receipts for any items that belonged to her.
Neither Jerry Hall or Elena Zhukova are Eliza Doolittles are reliant on a sugar daddy for a good time. Elena’s first husband was Alexander Zhukova, a Russian born billionaire energy investor while her art collector daughter Dasha was married to Roman Abramovich. She’s rich. Murdoch may be able to turn on the charm and fill the room with an electrifying personality, his tales of boardroom brawls and derring-do and his connections to the top people on the planet.
As power drifts from governments to the shadowy nexus between business, tech and politics, Murdoch’s ability to open doors to the elite might also be part of the X factor that drives his luck with the ladies, 25 years his junior. As long as they are by his side, his selfimage as a man of extraordinary influence is undimmed, and he can try to live with a vigour far below his years.