Advertisement

Jerry Hall cites reason for divorce from media mogul Rupert Murdoch after six years

Texan model and actor Jerry Hall has officially filed for divorce from billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, six years after the pair married.

The 65-year-old filed a petition in the Superior Court of California on Friday local time, citing “irreconcilable differences” as legal grounds for divorce.

In her petition, she also sought unspecified spousal support from the 91-year-old mogul and wants him to pay for her legal fees.

She said in the petition she was “unaware of the full nature and extent of all (Murdoch’s) assets and debts, and will amend this petition when the information has been ascertained”.

Hall’s lawyer Ronald Brot did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

US media are reporting the news came as a suprise to those close to the family, with one outlet claiming Hall filed for divorce after receiving an email from her husband telling her their marriage was over.

Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall were married in London in 2016. Photo: Getty

Murdoch and Hall married in a low-key ceremony in central London’s Spencer House in March 2016. It was Murdoch’s fourth marriage and Hall’s second.

The Fox chairman controls News Corp and Fox Corp through a Nevada-based family trust that holds roughly a 40 per cent stake in voting shares of each company.

Murdoch and his glamorous wife were frequent fodder for the tabloids, which chronicled their marriage at Spencer House and the festivities surrounding the elder Murdoch’s 90th birthday celebration last year at Tavern on the Green in New York City.

Murdoch’s divorce, his fourth, is unlikely to alter the ownership structure of businesses he holds stakes in, which include Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News Channel, and News Corp publisher of the Wall Street Journal, according to reports.

Bryce Tom, a spokesman for Murdoch, declined to comment. A representative for Hall, who is 65, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Melbourne-born billionaire, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $US17.7 billion ($25.6 billion), built a sprawling media empire with assets around the globe.

He sold the Fox film and television studios and other entertainment assets to Walt Disney Co in a $US71.3 billion deal that closed in March 2019.

Murdoch and Hall in 2019.

Murdoch previously was married to entrepreneur Wendi Deng, whom he divorced in 2014 after 14 years of marriage.

They have two daughters.

He split from his second wife, Anna Murdoch Mann, a Scottish journalist with whom he had three children, in 1999.

He and his first wife, Patricia Booker, a former flight attendant with whom he had a daughter, divorced in 1966.

Hall was previously the partner of Mick Jagger, from the Rolling Stones’, with whom she has four children.

 

-AAP

Stay informed, daily
A FREE subscription to The New Daily arrives every morning and evening.
The New Daily is a trusted source of national news and information and is provided free for all Australians. Read our editorial charter
Copyright © 2024 The New Daily.
All rights reserved.