Rupert Murdoch Used to Be Married to Anna Torv's Aunt, Anna Torv

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | March 20, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | March 20, 2023 |

This is a TIL I could not resist: It was announced today that Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old Australian demon, is set to marry for the 5th time. Murdoch will marry Ann Lesley Smith, a former San Francisco Police chaplain 26 years his junior. She is 66, the same age as Murdoch’s most recent ex-wife, Jerry Hall.

Aside from my frustration with hellspawn’s engagement being depicted in celebrity magazines as adorable (“Murdoch said he nervously popped the question on St. Patrick’s Day”) so as to humanize one of Satan’s actual children, I was taken aback by the list of Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wives: Jerry Hall, Wendi Deng, Anna Torv, and Patricia Booker.

Wait! What? Anna Torv?! Did I miss something? Rupert Murdoch used to be married to Tess from The Last of Us? When did that happen? Where was I? Is this like the Mandela effect where I lived in the other universe where this didn’t happen?

No, of course not! For 32 years, Rupert Murdoch was married to another Anna Torv, with whom he had three children: Lachlan, James, and Elizabeth. Lachlan is ostensibly the guy running Fox News now (although we all know it’s actually Tucker Carlson).

Crisis averted! Oh, but what: Anna Torv is the Aunt of Anna Torv, which makes Lachlan Murdoch a first cousin to Anna Torv. What does Anna Torv — the star of Fringe and Mindhunter — think about that? Honestly, she’d rather not talk about it. Ever. In fact, she has been estranged from her father, Hans Arvid Torv, who is the brother of Anna Torv, since she was young, and has nothing to do with the Murdochs. “I hate that that even comes up,” she once said on a publication that is now defunct. “I’ve been estranged from my father since I was eight.”

Anna Torv: Still and always in our good graces.