The marriage was hasty — entered into less than a year after they started dating. However, at 59 years old and 84, respectively, both the bride-groom were clearly old enough for what they wanted.
And now, six years after they said ‘I do’, the divorce between supermodel Jerry Hall and billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is being conducted at equal lightning speed.
A bare six weeks after Jerry filed for divorce on the grounds of ‘irreconcilable differences’, they have reached a settlement.
A joint statement, released by the New York PR firm Rubenstein on Wednesday night, after the Mail revealed that Jerry had asked the LA courts to cancel the divorce petition, ran: ‘Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch have finalized their divorce. They remain good friends and wish each other the best for the future.’
Rupert Murdoch, media mogul and Jerry Hall (left), have finalized their separation on Wednesday. They promise to stay good friends.
Jerry, now 66, exits with her dignity mostly intact and a figure said to be around £250 million, plus two houses, according to sources familiar with the proceedings.
It seems that Judy Poll’s $1,000 an hour New York law firm, Judy Poll, was able to make a deal with Jerry, considering the couple’s short marriage of six years and three month. Judy has previously looked after Scarlett Johansson and Drew Barrymore.
Although sources close to Rupert Murdoch said the total figure was more like £50m.
Texan Jerry, though, remains ‘very sad’ about the way things have worked out.
She has told confidantes that her love story with Murdoch was like the Shakespeare tragedy Romeo And Juliet — with the two star-crossed, albeit rather senior, lovers driven apart by their families. In this case, Rupert’s children.
It’s an arresting claim — but is there any truth in it?
MONTANA: It was only seven months ago that it was announced they had bought a $220 million, 340,000-acre ranch of cattle in the US
HENLEY – Holmwood House is a $13 million home near the Thames that they purchased in November 2011.
Certainly, the Murdoch clan teems with highly intelligent and competitive adult children, notably Prudence, 64, Elisabeth, 53, Lachlan, 50 and James, 49, Murdoch’s children by his first and second marriages. His daughters, Wendi Deng and 21-year-olds are his third wives. They have not yet been given a job.
The popular view is that, as per the TV drama Succession, these adult children naturally weigh every twist and turn of their father’s fortune to see how it might affect them, and their inheritances. If that is the case, then they will probably be having champagne for breakfast as it can be revealed that one of Jerry’s wishes, to be given the giant $200million ranch in Montana, has been denied. She has also been forced to leave what many consider the family’s most important property, the Moraga winery in Bel Air.
Moraga, the LA’s only winery, is situated on 14 acres above the Benedict Canyon fault. Built in 1920s and featuring 11 bedrooms, the house is reminiscent of a Tuscan farmhouse. Murdoch purchased it in 2013 for $27million.
Jerry came to visit her during the courtship. She loved it and enjoyed extended visits. She fully bought into the lifestyle and held court at a lavish ‘backyard BBQ’ held there in 2019 to celebrate 30 years of wine production.
After a 2016 wedding service, Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch gathered outside St Bride’s Church in London.
In a simple ceremony held in London, the 91-year old married Hall, 65 in March 2016. The ceremony was photographed shortly afterwards.
Because she was so passionate about the land, she even revealed to guests that she’d taken a course of viticulture. Her former partner, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, was incidentally among the invited guests enjoying Mrs Murdoch’s hospitality on that occasion.
Jerry listed Moraga as her address in her court filing on July 1, and was living there along with her daughter Lizzie and grandson Eugene during the winter — but Rupert Murdoch is firmly in residence now.
This week, we saw him looking serious as he was chauffeured in and out Moraga.
In Murdoch’s corner for the divorce — and making sure that he kept his slice of paradise — was Robert S.Cohen, an impressive legal force who went into bat for Melinda Gates in her massive divorce from tech tycoon Bill Gates.
Pictured: Sons Lachlan and James pose with their father during his wedding ceremony
It’s whispered in New York that he was hired on the advice of Murdoch’s son and heir apparent Lachlan, and it was suggested recently on the Daily Beast website that Lachlan has helped his father to exit this, his fourth marriage. Again, it’s not possible to be sure that this is the case, but a source says: ‘There’s no love lost between Lachlan and Jerry. Lachlan will definitely not be getting a Christmas card from Jerry this year.’
While all parties were declining to comment yesterday, I’m told that the divorce deal largely sticks with the pre-nup which the couple agreed before their wedding in London.
Jerry gets one property in the UK — the $13million house in Henley — and a house in France which was quietly bought for her about four years ago.
Rupert Murdoch got what he wanted, which was to get out — fast and clean — and keep hold of everything that he could.
His skill as an operator is legendary. This speedy and bloodless skirmish — leaving him with homes in America, Australia and the UK, where he keeps an apartment in the exclusive London district of St James’s — will only burnish that reputation. The question is: Why and when was the marriage not successful?
According to friends of Hall, the UK, they witnessed the couple in May and April. They seemed delightfully happy.
According to the Daily Beast, however, things began to unravel last fall.
What appears clear is that the thread which unravelled the union was Murdoch’s decision to sell up in New York.
He has a three-floor ‘Master of the Universe’-style penthouse in the One Madison building in Manhattan, plus a smaller apartment on the next floor down in the same building.
Hall is now leaving her family’s $150M Bel-Air estate in Los Angeles where she had been living for most of her life.
The house, built in the 1920s, looks like a Tuscan farmhouse and has 11 bedrooms and a large swimming pool. Murdoch paid nearly $27million for the house in 2013.
Those properties — with magnificent, 20ft glass walls giving floor-to-ceiling views of the Hudson and East Rivers, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center — went on the market in March for $78million. The properties remain available for sale.
They had to go through paperwork before the sale.
Sources close to Jerry say that Murdoch generously offered to swap Jerry’s interest in the properties for ownership of his Montana ranch, which is more than twice as valuable — it was bought for $200million in 2021.
It’s said that some in the family weren’t happy with this.
Sources confirm now that Jerry didn’t get Montana Ranch. Rumours that Jerry might have been interested in that deal led to Jerry and his wife splitting up a couple of months later, in June.
Beaverhead Ranch, which covers 340,000 acres of land and is approximately 50 miles long from north to south, is worth bickering about. This ranch, which is located close to Yellowstone National Park was used as a cattle station and was later sold.
It was the biggest property transaction ever made in New York at the time it was purchased. Murdoch promised that he would ‘enhance’ the commercial cattle business and the ‘conservation assets’ of the wilderness.
The home is the only is the only vineyard in LA. It comprises 14 acres located atop of the Benedict Canyon fault.
In the backyard, the large estate has its own tennis court.
Their extended Montana family gathered at the Montana ranch for several occasions.
Montana was a paradise for everyone. It had stunning mountain views and more than 4,000 elk. 800 antelope were found in the area. The creek, which runs 28 miles, is stocked with trout. Jerry was born in Mesquite Texas and it is easy to understand why he wanted this.
It wasn’t to be, though — and sources confirm that Jerry didn’t get the ranch in the division of property, either.
In June Murdoch emailed Jerry to declare the marriage over. He told her they would only communicate via lawyers from then on. Jerry was stricken — professing heartbreak and saying that she was still ‘in love’ with him.
At that point she was in the UK and was planning to spend the summer here with him — at his side at his annual media party in June in London followed by the wedding of his granddaughter Charlotte Freud in Oxfordshire early in July.
It is amazing to see her reaction when the news broke. Within a week of the split becoming public knowledge Jerry had filed for divorce — in California — giving her home address as the Moraga vineyard.
And here began the ‘Game of Homes’ manoeuvring. Murdoch wouldn’t even consider Moraga losing, but he also would immediately grasp the message.
For California is what is known as a ‘community property state’. It means that two individuals are treated as one entity when they marry.
Thus, any property or assets that either buys during the marriage is considered community property — and is owned by both spouses.
Murdoch and Hall last saw each other in London on August 20, 2021 when they were photographed arriving at separate dinners (seen). The two of them are believed to have left then together in a car shared by another driver.
Included is a ranch worth $200 million in Montana and the Henley house.
Assets bought before the marriage — including the New York apartments, the Moraga vineyard and a 25,000 acre sheep station in Australia — are not included in the common pot.
Murdoch will be a veteran of three divorces and well-aware of these facts. He also knows how expensive he could lose if he gets divorced. Wendi Deng reportedly got £380 million and her predecessor Anna, his wife for 31 years, $1.6billion in 1999.
This $19-billion-awarding tycoon owns the Sun and Times newspapers, as well as Fox News USA.
Mick Jagger paid Jerry $14.9 million after their divorce. It is clear that Jerry would not have taken advantage of a bad deal.
It turned out that the marriage Jerry and Jagger went through in Bali had no legal force — a nasty surprise for her — and the Rolling Stone didn’t even give her their old marital home in Richmond. They remained co-owners.
Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch are now divorced. Above is her in Los Angeles, 2016.
Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall pictured together in California in 2019
Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch attend the screening of ‘The Quiet One” at the Tribeca Film Festival 2019 at SVA Theater
You might also consider the service of divorce papers to be legal tricksery.
These were thrust into Rupert Murdoch’s hand as he waited to board a private jet at Brize Norton following his granddaughter’s wedding.
Process server Michael Colacicco, a former Met Police detective, did the deed and it is confirmed in writing that Murdoch was served ‘in the car park’ in a written note filed into court.
Jerry was at Henley in the beginning of summer. The house had been purchased for over $13million. I’m told that she filed for divorce giving her address as California even though at the time she was actually there.
Elizabeth Jagger (left), Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall and Jerry Hall pose together in a LA Garden Party in 2019, as do Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel, Daphne Kaster and Rupert Murdoch.
A local shopkeeper said: ‘There was somebody at the property about six weeks ago. We always know when the house is being used because they will ring us and ask for newspapers to be delivered.’
According to locals however, Jerry and Gabriel have used the house since.
A neighbour said: ‘I don’t think she’s there. The couple went to California in the winter six- or nine months prior.
‘It’s her son who is living there now. With everything going on, she doesn’t have much reason to be here, I suppose.’
According to her friends, she’s currently located in St Tropez which is one of their favorite places. Since her childhood, she’s owned land in the hills surrounding St Tropez. She loves to travel the Med every August.
She quietly sold her St Tropez house, which Mick Jagger had given to her four years earlier and purchased a bigger and more luxurious one. ‘The old place was too small when Rupert’s family came to stay,’ she explained.
Maybe that is what makes her love the freedom and space she now has.
Daniel Bates reports on additional stories