The bride wore a white, off-the-shoulder gown by the London-based designer Emilia Wickstead, whose clients include the Princess of Wales and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Her wedding bouquet was a simple spray of lily of the valley.
The 93-year-old bridegroom, meanwhile, was dapper in a sober grey suit with a gold tie, and a pair of thick-soled trainers that were perhaps chosen with comfort in mind.
The match between Rupert Murdoch and retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, 67, has been described by society glossy Tatler as the media magnate’s ‘ultimate power match’.
Elena is no stranger to life among the super rich. Her first husband, Alexander Zhukov, is – like Murdoch – a billionaire thanks to his energy investments and their daughter Darya (known as Dasha) was married for ten years to the former Chelsea FC owner, Roman Abramovich, who made billions from Russia’s 1990s privatisation drive.
But her new husband is wealthier than both of them. His estimated £15.6 billion fortune puts him in the top 75 richest people on the planet – even though he stepped down last year as head of media giants News Corp and Fox, passing the chairmanship to his oldest son Lachlan, one of three children with his first wife Anna.
The Sun newspaper, part of his press stable, yesterday reported: ‘News legend Rupert Murdoch was all smiles yesterday as he married his beautiful bride.’
Only one of his four previous wives attended Saturday’s nuptials.
That was his third ex-wife and TV executive Wendi Deng, who was married to him between 1999 and 2013, and with whom he has two daughters.
Her presence was not so surprising, given that it was Wendi who introduced Murdoch to Elena at a garden party she threw last year.
It appears she may have even have encouraged their romance. Perhaps understandably, there was no sign of ex-wife No. 4, Jerry Hall, the woman the Rolling Stones’ Sir Mick Jagger poached from his Roxy Music rival, Bryan Ferry, to be his long-term partner.
The ceremony was held at Murdoch’s beautiful Moraga Estate vineyard in Bel Air, California.
Jerry had reportedly hoped to be given Moraga as part of her divorce settlement but it clearly had a special place in Murdoch’s heart, to the point that he decided to make it the setting of his latest wedding.
Jerry married him in 2016, a week before his 85th birthday, but was dispensed with six years later by email, a display of ruthlessness that shocked even seasoned Murdoch watchers.
‘Jerry,’ he wrote, ‘sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage. We have certainly had some good times but I have much to do.’
Much to do? No one could have predicted this would include a dalliance with the widow of the country singer Chester Smith (best-known for his hit Wait A Little Longer, Please Jesus).
Murdoch wooed Ann Lesley Smith, 67, with an 11-carat diamond engagement ring worth an estimated £2 million and the couple were spotted holidaying on the beach in Barbados, with his lithe fiancee sporting a yellow bikini. But the engagement lasted just two weeks, brought to an end by Murdoch when he became ‘increasingly uncomfortable’ with her evangelical Christian beliefs, according to Vanity Fair magazine.
Murdoch’s family life is often said to be the inspiration for the TV epic Succession, an HBO series about ageing media mogul Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) and the internecine scheming of his children to take over his empire.
But even Logan’s love life was not this colourful. ‘He seems incapable of having a relationship with a woman without wanting to marry her,’ one media analyst commented to the Daily Mail when Rupert’s engagement to Elena was announced last March. ‘Whether it’s fuelled by loneliness, or fear, or something deeper, who knows?’
Others have suggested Murdoch ‘doesn’t really believe in sex outside marriage’.
He appeared to be in fine fettle in the newly released wedding photographs but his health has been questionable in recent years.
In 2018, he suffered a fall aboard Lachlan’s 140ft yacht, the Sarissa, and required treatment for both a broken back and the heart condition arrhythmia.
He was also hospitalised following a bout of Covid, when he became unsteady at the wedding of his 21-year-old granddaughter Charlotte Freud in 2022.
After he was introduced to Elena at Wendi’s Los Angeles home, he invited her to join a family cruise last August in the Mediterranean.
His choice of vessel was a £600,000-a-week megayacht called the Christina O, with a highly romantic pedigree.
Aristotle Onassis courted Jackie Kennedy on the boat, while Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier held their wedding reception there. Though the new Mrs Murdoch is well used to the high life, she has the impressive credentials of a serious scientist. Born in Moscow to Jewish parents, she emigrated to the US in 1991 as part of the ‘Russian brain drain’ that followed the collapse of Communism.
A molecular biologist specialising in the study of diabetes, she took up a post at Baylor University in Texas. By then, she was already divorced from her first husband Zhukov and brought their daughter with her to America.
Another marriage followed to a man named George Gause, also a scientist. They had two children, Yuri and Katya, before divorcing.
In 1994, she moved to Los Angeles to work at the University of California, UCLA. Her daughter Dasha attended an exclusive private school in west Los Angeles.
After Dasha’s marriage to Abramovich, an associate of her father, Dasha was able to shower gifts on her mother, including an £8 million home in Beverly Hills, in 2008.
A UCLA colleague remarked: ‘Elena already came from a wealthy background. Then her daughter married a billionaire.’ Now the nuptials are over, the happy couple plan to spend most of their time at the Bel Air estate where Rupert is continuing to work on developing an internationally renowned winery. The wine already has a cult following.
‘He wants Moraga to be a big part of his legacy,’ a source confided yesterday.