Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and actress Jerry Hall are splitting after six years of marriage, according to reports.

The New York Times, which broke the news of the abrupt split, said friends of the 91-year-old tycoon and 65-year-old actress and model were “surprised” at the news.

It is also being reported by The Washington Post.

Mr Murdoch married Hall in a low-key ceremony in central London in March 2016. It was his fourth marriage and, technically, her first.

“Feel like the luckiest and happiest man in the world,” Mr Murdoch tweeted after the wedding – vowing to leave Twitter for good.

Tweet from @rupertmurdoch

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

Those who gathered for Mr Murdoch’s summer party at London’s Serpentine Gallery earlier this week noted the absence of Hall.

“I did think it was odd that she wasn’t there. She’s a social butterfly and would generally be at these sort of functions,” one said.

“I also noticed that none of her side of the family was there, nor her friends.”

The couple have reportedly not been seen in public together in London since August 2021.

News of the split has also sparked speculation about how it will affect Mr Murdoch’s vast wealth. It is not known if the couple have a prenuptial agreement, although Mr Murdoch did have one with his third wife, Wendi Deng.

But the Australian-born media tycoon’s latest divorce is unlikely to alter the ownership structure of businesses he holds stakes in. They include Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News Channel, and News Corp publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

The 91-year-old Mr Murdoch controls News Corp and Fox Corp through a Reno, Nevada-based family trust that holds roughly a 40 per cent stake in voting shares of each company.

Bryce Tom, a spokesman for Mr 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.

Mr Murdoch and Ms Deng were 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 the long-time partner of The Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, with whom she has four children.

She and Jagger married in a Hindu wedding ceremony in Bali in 1990. The marriage was annulled in 1999 in London.

-with agencies