Is Rupert Murdoch Jewish? Religion Ethnicity And Family Explored

Rupert Murdoch

Is Rupert Murdoch Jewish? People have always been curious about businessman’s religious beliefs and have brought up the subject of religion in the discussion. Continue reading to learn more about his faith and other details about his family.

Keith Rupert Murdoch is an American business mogul of Australian origin who was awarded the Order of Australia, which honors Australian citizens and other individuals for outstanding accomplishments and contributions.

Through his company, News Corp., he is the owner of hundreds of regional, national, and global publishing companies, including the book publisher HarperCollins, the television networks Sky News Australia and Fox News, and the newspapers The Sun and The Times in the UK, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Australian in Australia, and The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post in the US.

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Is Rupert Murdoch Jewish? Religion Revealed

Despite coming from a Christian household, the business magnate has never been a particularly devout person. He never officially converted to Catholicism, although his second wife, Anna Torv, was known to be a Roman Catholic.

When asked about his religion, he replied that he is undoubted “a practicing Christian,” although he has not legally converted to Catholicism.

He said in a past interview, “I go to church quite a bit but not every Sunday, and I tend to go to a Catholic church—because my wife is Catholic, I have not formally converted…I’m not intensely religious as I’m sometimes described.”

Rupert Murdoch Jewish
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and ex-police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith have abruptly called off their engagement weeks after announcing it. (Source: BBC)

The businessman did, however, once cause controversy online by criticizing the “Jewish-owned” press in a tweet and writing on Twitter: “Why is Jewish-owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?”

Murdoch retracted his statements after being accused of anti-Semitism and said he disagreed with those who disagreed with him but was apologetic anyway.

Rupert Murdoch Ethnicity

On March 11th, 1931, Keith was born in Melbourne, Australia, as were his parents. He does, however, have Scottish, Irish, and English ancestry.

Consequently, he is of white ethnicity and has dual citizenship, i.e., Australian and American. He also held ownership positions in 21st Century Fox (until 2019), Sky (until 2018), and the now-defunct News of the World.

Rupert murdoch and his children
Rupert Murdoch’s children are set to receive at least $2bn from the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, making two of them the new world’s youngest billionaires. (Source: Verdict)

Murdoch is the 99th richest person in the world and the 35th richest on the Forbes 400 list, with a net worth of $17.6 billion as of April 6, 2022.

Rupert Murdoch Family Explored

The businessman is the second of Sir Keith Murdoch and Dame Elisabeth’s four children. His father worked as a war correspondent before becoming the chairman of the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company and a regional newspaper tycoon who owned two newspapers in Adelaide and a radio station in a far-off mining town.

Murdoch had three sisters: Helen (1929–2004), Anne (born in 1935), and Janet (born in 1939). His Presbyterian preacher paternal grandfather, Patrick John Murdoch, was of Scottish descent.

Later in adulthood, Murdoch decided to use his maternal grandfather’s first name as his second name.

His first wife, Patricia Booker, was three years older, having been born in 1928, while Murdoch was born in 1931.

Booker was a former shop assistant and a flight attendant from Melbourne when she married Murdoch in 1956. The marriage lasted 11 years.

Then came Anna Torv, a journalist and novelist with an age gap of 14 years. Murdoch married Torv in 1967 and divorced her in 1999 after more than three decades of marriage.

Rupert Murdoch wives
Old romantic: the many wives of Rupert Murdoch (Source: EVENING STANDARD)

Just 17 days after divorcing Torv, the then-68-year-old moved on by marrying a 30-year-old Yale graduate, Wendi Deng.

The Chinese-origin American businesswoman went on to chair Murdoch’s STAR TV as vice president. In 2013, Murdoch filed for divorce.

Around this time, he also ended his friendship with longtime ally and former British PM Tony Blair after believing that Blair and Deng were having an affair.

In 2016, Keith married former model Jerry Hall, both of whom shared an age gap of 26 years. Their divorce was fairly recent, occurring in 2022. So Murdoch quickly moving on with another woman in her 60s wouldn’t come as a surprise.

Murdoch, however, was confident that Ann Lesley Smith was the final love of his life before their subsequent breakup.

Rupert has six children: Prudence MacLeod, Lachlan, Elisabeth, James, Grace, and Chloe. Prudence is the oldest, and Chloe is the youngest.

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