Rupert Murdoch & Fiancee Ann Lesley Smith Call Off Engagement After Just Two Weeks

Prince Harry’s battle with the British tabloids will continue this week with the preliminary hearing into his action against The Sun newspaper set to take place in London Tuesday.

$787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems related to lies Fox News told about the 2020 election.“The stupidity in the executive offices at Fox and at the anchor desks led to this outcome which was completely avoidable,” the MSNBC host said during his show on Wednesday. “Someone at Fox could’ve said to the people hosting their shows ‘You can let Rudy Giuliani tell any lie he wants for as long as he wants and at the end of it all you have to say is ‘if that’s true, this is a terrible situation and we’re going to have to do something about that’’ and Fox never could have been sued.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Let no one deny it: Rupert Murdoch is clever like a fox. He’s slyer than his adversaries in mainstream media. They still think in real-world terms. But Murdoch thinks in terms of the world that he’s created — the world of fake news, of lies that play because they carry the ring of vengeful mythology (life as a Charles Bronson film that never ends). The world that Fox News pretends is reality. You could make a case that in recent weeks, Murdoch’s circus of happy-talk dystopian propaganda (otherwise known as any random half hour of Fox News) took a major hit. The release of documents subpoenaed during the Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News revealed something that was, or should be, profoundly embarrassing to the network: that there are moments when its star huckster, Tucker Carlson, actually tells the truth (at least in private). The revelation that Carlson, along with a number of Fox News executives, peddled Donald Trump’s crackpot assertion that he won the 2020 election not because they believed it, but because they thought they had to go along with what their viewers wanted to hear, made the Fox team look like craven cowards. The lawsuit never made it to trial, but because those documents were leaked you could say the damage was done. And to keep the trial from happening, Murdoch had to cough up the mother of all defamation settlements: $787.5 million. 

reached a settlement in their $1.6 billion defamation battle on Tuesday, the hosts of “The View” were pretty unimpressed. According to the women at ABC’s table, the outcome “just didn’t sting enough” for Fox.Dominion settled the suit against Fox News for $787.5 million, almost exactly half of what they were suing for.

After a one-day delay and amidst whispers of settlement talks, Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation trial against Fox News is set to begin Tuesday in Wilmington, DE.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The greatest show Fox News may ever put on is about to start. Imagine a Fox News program that utilizes the talents of the no-nonsense news anchor Bret Baier along with those of the opinion host Tucker Carlson. One that also puts anchor “The Five” mainstays Dana Perino and Jeanine Pirro into the mix, along with business anchor and commentator Maria Bartiromo. One that features possible appearances by Fox News executives like Suzanne Scott, the CEO of the operation, and Jay Wallace, its top news executive. A program that tops it all off with a potential cameo by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, two of the controlling shareholders of Fox News’ media-conglomerate parent, Fox Corporation.

Succession as part of her divorce settlement from Rupert Murdoch.The HBO series, which stars Brian Cox as Logan Roy, is partially inspired by the Murdoch family, along with other media mogul families like the Redstones and Mercers. “The amazing thing about this stuff is that it’s everywhere,” show creator Jesse Armstrong told The New York Times in 2019.“Sumner Redstone’s family. The Mercers.

READ NOW: Joe Jonas shares brutal verdict Wetherspoons experience on UK tripThe multibillionaire media mogul, who counts himself among the top 32 wealthiest people in the USA, called time on his marriage with Jerry Hall last year. She was reportedly given a deadline of 30 days to move out of the luxury home the pair shared and into a different property in Oxfordshire solo. According to Vanity Fair, the happy marriage celebrations the pair shared back in 2016 were marred by the media mogul coming down with the flu.

his own investigation into the Murdoch family and Fox News, argues the 92-year-old is actually a “very old man” whose health has been “failing for a very long time.” And on “CNN This Morning” Thursday, co-host Don Lemon reported that “there are signs” that HBO’s hit drama “Succession” “has been getting under his skin.”“I think now we’re just catching up to the fact that he’s a shell of what he used to be,” Sherman told Lemon, breaking down his viral deep-dive on the media mogul and his family, published Wednesday via Vanity Fair. Sherman argued that Dominion Voting System’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News has been a direct result of Murdoch’s “diminished leadership.”“There has really been this vacuum at the top of the company and it allowed all of these Dominion falsehoods and these lies to get onto the air on Fox, because they put ratings above all else,” he explained.

Succession writers”, a new report has claimed.Since the multi-award-winning HBO show debuted in 2018, many parallels have been drawn between the fictional media family the Roys and the real-life Murdochs.Despite this, no explicit confirmation of any direct inspiration has been given by the show’s creators.In a new feature on the Murdochs for Vanity Fair, a source is cited claiming that Lachlan accused his brother James Murdoch of leaking stories about the family to the writers of the show, with Lachlan then telling his father Rupert.The feature adds that a separate source close to Lachlan denies that any stories were sold.Season four of Succession is currently airing on HBO, and fans have reacted to the “magnificent” twist in its latest episode.Spoilers for Succession season four below.In the episode titled Connor’s Wedding, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) departs on a flight to Sweden with some of his closest advisors to negotiate a new deal with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), while Logan’s children Roman (Kieran Culkin), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Kendall (Jeremy Strong) attend their brother’s wedding on a cruise ship in New York.While Connor (Alan Ruck) is hopeful his father will make time for a fly-by visit, Roman, Kendall and Shiv are soon informed by Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) over the phone that Logan has fallen ill during the flight and has become unresponsive.After some emotional final goodbyes over the phone, Logan is later pronounced dead when the private plane lands back on US soil.

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost and Michael Che took multiple swings at Fox News and Donald Trump on the show.

Katcy Stephan Audible’s hit podcast “Bitter Blood” is back for a second season — and the service has tapped “Succession” star Alan Ruck to narrate a story with as much intrigue and drama as his TV family’s. “Murdoch v. Murdoch,” out April 6, is an eight-part deep dive into the Murdoch family, unearthing the contention and hostilities among the dynasty and its sprawling international media empire. “The Roy culture parallels the Murdoch culture in a lot of ways,” Ruck tells Variety exclusively. The actor didn’t use the real-life Murdochs to inspire his portrayal of Connor Roy, but he did note some similarities: “[Rupert] Murdoch had one child by his first wife, just like Logan. That child is Prudence Murdoch, who, like Connor, is not really involved in the family business at all.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch could be called upon to testify in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit suit against Fox News and Fox Corp., per a Delaware judge who says he is not against calling upon the media moguls. If the attorneys for Dominion issue trial subpoenas to force a testimony from the Fox leaders, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said at a public hearing Wednesday he, “would not quash it and I would compel them to come,” per NBC News. “It would be my discretion that they come,” Davis said. Dominion’s attorneys requested in a letter to the court Wednesday that live testimony be required from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Fox board member and former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Fox exec Viet Dinh. Davis approved the request to compel each of them to testify, according to NBC News.

Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corporation board member Paul Ryan and Fox Corp. executive Viet Dinh can be compelled to testify in Dominion’s upcoming defamation trial against Fox News, a judge said on Wednesday.

the reported that Murdoch popped the question to the 66-year-old former San Francisco police chaplain, whom he planned to marry in late summer 2023.«I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love -- but I knew this would be my last.

UPDATED: Rupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith are no longer engaged, Deadline has confirmed, only weeks after news that the two were planning to tie the knot this summer. Smith was set to be wife No. 5 for the media mogul and chairman of Fox Corp.

Rupert Murdoch has reportedly called off his engagement only two weeks after announcing that he was due to tie the knot again.

Rupert Murdoch was eager to make a call and effectively — and emphatically — declare Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential race as vote counting continued three days after election day, internal Fox News emails show.The Fox News Decision Desk played a pivotal role in the turn of events that was 2020 Election Night, calling the state of Arizona for Biden many hours before any other media outlet.But it was Murdoch who encouraged Fox News leadership to pull the cattle brand from the fire and call things for Biden on Nov. 6, with several states still counting votes, emails made public Friday by Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6 billion defamation case against the network show.“It would be great if we call it for Biden as soon as he gets over, say, 35,000 ahead in Pennsylvania,” Murdoch wrote.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News is about to have one of its biggest events in years, and everyone from CEO Suzanne Scott to prominent anchors like Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo to primetime chief Meade Cooper is likely to attend some part of it. If Fox’s parent company has its way, however, Rupert Murdoch, the guiding force behind much of Fox Corporation, will not. Starting as soon as April 17, Fox Corp. could square off in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware and face allegations of defamation from Dominion Voting Systems in a whopping $1.6 billion-dollar suit that is sure to generate headlines. Before any of that can start, however, the two sides appear to locked in a battle over whether the Fox Corp. executive chairman, and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, should be present in court to give testimony.

Dominion Voting Systems’ upcoming defamation trial against Fox News and Fox Corp., scheduled to begin on April 17, may very well feature a parade of the network’s news personalities taking the stand, with both sides in the case planning to call figures including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Bret Baier.