- Rupert Murdoch’s fifth wife is a celebrated Russian-born molecular biologist
- Elena Zhukova moved to the US with her daughter in 1990
- The couple met through Murdoch’s third wife
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch tied the knot with his girlfriend Elena Zhukova, a celebrated Russian-born molecular biologist, at a star-studded event in Bel-Air last weekend.
Murdoch, 93, and Zhukova, 67, announced their engagement earlier this year, marking the Australian billionaire’s fifth anniversary.
Murdoch was last married to model and actor Jerry Hall. They married in 2016 and divorced in 2022.
When Zhukova first moved to the United States, she settled in Houston, where she worked at Baylor College of Medicine before moving to Los Angeles to take a position at UCLA.
At the time of her retirement, Zhukova was considered an authority on diabetes and was a professor of molecular biology at the University of California.
The researcher is the ex-wife of Alexander Zhukov, a billionaire energy investor and Russian politician. They divorced in 1984. Their daughter, Dasha, was previously married to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who owned Premier League football club Chelsea.
Last fall, Murdoch, who is worth $20 billion, stepped down as leader of both Fox News’ parent company and his media interests in News Corp. His son, Lachlan, took his place in a media empire that stretched across continents and helped shape modern American politics.
When did Elena Zhukova move to the US?
Zhukova first moved to the United States to take a position at Baylor in 1990, just before the fall of the Soviet Union.
Her daughter Dasha told the Financial Times in 2012 that her mother had no intention of staying in the US until the collapse of communism and that they planned to return to Russia.
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‘My mother is quite a serious person, who is more interested in content than aesthetics. There were always very serious scientists in our house,” Dasha told the FT.
In a 2009 interview with The Guardian, Dasha described what it was like moving to the US from Russia. ‘It was a culture shock. I had never seen cereal before! In Russia we had cottage cheese and pancakes, not colorful circles that came in cardboard boxes.”
During that interview, Dasha said she bonded with her mother while watching cartoons on American television. Dasha also adopted her mother’s Jewish faith, telling the New Yorker that her father has a very strong Christian faith.
She also said that her mother had born twins in 1992, a boy, Yuri, and a girl, Katya. It is unclear whether she ever married the twins’ father, fellow scientist George Gause.
How did Elena Zhukova meet Rupert Murdoch?
It was rumored that Zhukova and Murdoch first spent time together in the summer of 2023, after being introduced to each other, the third wife of Fox News founder Wendi Deng.
Deng is reportedly good friends with Dasha, with the duo mingling in New York City’s social circles.
When did Elena Zhukova and Rupert Murdoch get engaged?
Murdoch and Zhukova announced their engagement in March 2024. They confirmed at the time that the wedding would take place at his California vineyard, Moraga.
The media mogul was briefly engaged to former San Francisco police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith in 2023, although the couple called off the engagement weeks later.
Vanity Fair reported the breakup and quoted a source as saying that Murdoch was uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views.
His last marriage to former model Jerry Hall ended in divorce after six years.
Who was Elena Zhukova married to before?
Zhukova met her first husband when they were both students in Moscow. Alexander founded an energy company when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev relaxed trade laws in the communist country.
At some point after his ex-wife and child left for the US, Alexander also left and settled in London.
In 2001, he was arrested and spent six months in an Italian prison, accused of supplying weapons to Bosnian militants. He was eventually released without charges being filed.
Militarism runs in the family, as Alexander is a descendant of Marshal Zhukov, the Russian general who helped repel the Nazis in Stalingrad.
Dasha said during her interview with the FT that her mother was “very affectionate.”
‘She was and is very reasonable with me. I’ve always felt like I had independence, but enough structure to not go off the deep end. I always felt like I never wanted to disappoint my parents, so that kept me on track.”
After her divorce from Abramovich, Dasha married naval heir Stavros Niarchos III, Paris Hilton’s ex-boyfriend.