How Rupert Murdoch replaced Jerry Hall with ex-San Francisco socialite known for ‘QAnon-style politics’

It struck many as defying the natural order of the universe when glamorous 1970s supermodel Jerry Hall, the longtime ex-partner of Mick Jagger, married conservative, 85-year-old medial mogul Rupert Murdoch in March 2016.

But as Vanity Reports, Hall seemed to genuinely to love her billionaire husband, despite the fact that she’s “a BBC-loving liberal” and his Fox News effectively became President Donald Trump’s “de facto state TV.” The 25-years-younger Hall also seemed to enjoy Murdoch’s company and cared for him through his escalating health crises, including feeding him by spoon for months after he suffered a fall on his oldest son’s yacht.

So, Hall felt “blindsided” when she received an email from Murdoch in June 2022, telling her, “Sadly, I’ve decided to end our marriage.” She and others close to her were left wondering: What happened?

The possible answer came in January when Murdoch was photographed vacationing in Barbados with another willowy blonde: Ann Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former dental hygienist, ex-San Francisco socialite and widow of the late Modesto-based TV mogul Chester Smith.

Marriage made in …
Rupert Murdoch engaged to Ann Lesley Smith.
I’m not joking. pic.twitter.com/DBi5pfaNa0

— Joline Gutierrez Krueger ????????‍♀️????????????????‍???????????????? (@jolinegkg) March 20, 2023

Hall recognized Ann Lesley Smith from the time, a year earlier, when they hosted her for dinner at their ranch in Carmel, Sherman said. At the time, Smith was dating the ranch’s manager. She also was a conservative radio host “with QAnon-style politics” who flattered the media mogul by telling him that he and Fox News were saving democracy.

Hall then recalled how Smith had offered to give Murdoch a teeth cleaning, Sherman also said. Thereafter, her husband began making trips alone into Carmel, claiming he wanted one-on-one time with one of his daughters with third wife Wendi Deng.

Hall concluded that Murdoch had simply moved on, the way he had ended previous marriages, Sherman reported. “She was devastated, mad, and humiliated,” Hall’s good friend Tom Cashin told Sherman.

Among the humiliations: Hall had to move her things out of their Bel Air estate within 30 days and relied on Jagger’s security consultant to dismantle surveillance cameras that were still sending footage back to Fox headquarters from her estate outside London, Sherman said.

“On the first day of Lent in February, Hall told friends she made an effigy of Murdoch, tied dental floss around its neck, and burned it on the grill,” Sherman also said.

Perhaps it’s some consolation to Hall that Murdoch pretty quickly dispatched Smith, a mere two weeks after announcing their engagement. Her ex-husband stunned the world in late March when he announced that he was marrying for the firth time. He said he was ready to take another chance on love with Smith. He proposal came as Fox News faces an existential threat from Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.

In breaking news that Murdoch had called off the engagement, Sherman reported that Smith’s politics and religious views might have been too extreme even for him. A source close to Murdoch told Sherman earlier this month that Murdoch had become “increasingly uncomfortable” with Smith’s “outspoken evangelical views.”

On Facebook, she shared a mix of inspirational self-help talk with Christian nationalism and right-wing conspiracy theories. She also said “Tucker Carlson is a messenger from God, and he said nope,” a source told Sherman.

It’s also possible that Murdoch — or people close to him — also had become increasingly uncomfortable with news reports that began circulating about Smith. Details about her personal history were sketchy, including where she was born and grew up. But it had  become known that she had been married at least twice to much-older men and that those marriages ended in bitter and protracted legal fights over money.

It’s easy to see how Murdoch’s three adult children from his second marriage wouldn’t want any added complications from Smith as they gear up for an-already complicated succession battle over the future of the Murdoch empire, Sherman reported. Perhaps Murdoch also didn’t want to be associated with a woman whose

In several interviews in recent years, Smith liked to portray herself living a “rags-to-riches” storyline that became even more fulfilling when, she said, Jesus and prayer brought new meaning into her life.

“When you let the Lord take control of your life, you can make it,” Smith once told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “Out of the ruins you can rise, and let the oil of his anointing just be all over you.”

Smith said she found Jesus after surviving a turbulent first marriage in the 1980s to the much-older John B. Huntington, a scion of one of San Francisco’s most prominent families. They married when she was a 28-year-old dental hygienist, joining the 47-year-old Huntington’s high-society life-style, which included a Tiburon estate, philanthropic endeavors, gala openings and a clothing budget of up to $65,000 a month.

Smith made news at one of the galas when she was involved “a shoving match” with another socialite on the dance floor at the Fairmont Hotel, the New York Times reported. Smith pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault and was ordered to donate $3,000 to a shelter for abused women, Reuters reported at the time.

After Smith and Huntington separated in 1989, she launched an unsuccessful court fight to extend spousal support, according to court records. She claimed she suffered post-traumatic stress fromHuntington’s alleged abuse and alcoholism.

Following the divorce, Smith told CBN that she had to go on welfare and became suicidal but found redemption through faith and worked for a time as a street preacher in Marin County. In 1999, she married Michael Carabello, a former percussionist in the rock band Santana, but that marriage only lasted a year, the New York Times reported.

At some point, Smith met her her husband, Chester Smith, a former country music star who became wealthy by buying up independent local TV stations. He married her, just after divorcing his first wife, whom he had been married to for 42 years, according to the Daily Mail. He was 74 at the time, while his new bride was 27 years his junior.

Early in their marriage, Chester and Ann Lesley Smith cut a country music album together titled “Captured in Love.” The album cover shows Smith dressed in a police uniform; she told the Modesto Bee that she met her very devout Christian husband when she was working as a prison chaplain.

“Captured by love” the 2005 album by Chester Smith with Ann Lesley Smith … https://t.co/pF99sY2Eop pic.twitter.com/oY6oEnFbYy

— John Blyther ???? (@johnblyther) April 5, 2023

That marriage ended with Chester Smith’s death in 2008, but another court fight erupted. The late mogul’s three adult daughters went to court to have Smith removed as the executor of his will, claiming that their stepmother had engaged in “financial elder abuse” and failed to give them money their father had left for them. The case was eventually settled.

Smith and Murdoch suggested to the New York Post that their romance didn’t blossom until September, a month after he finalized his divorce from Hall. He said she came to a gathering at his vineyard in Bel Air. He also spoke optimistically of how they would spend the “second half” of their lives together.

“I was very nervous,” Murdoch said of their romance. “I dreaded falling in love – but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy.”