![]() ![]() ![]() Illustration by Risko.Īlthough he is a nonagenarian intent on living forever, Murdoch has been consumed with the question of his succession. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, surrounded by (clockwise from top left) his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, ex-fiancée Ann Lesley Smith, and sons James and Lachlan Murdoch. “There’s been a joke in the family for a long time that 40 may be the new 30, but 80 is 80,” a source close to Murdoch said. But unlike the politicians Murdoch has bullied into submission with his tabloids, human biology is immovable. ![]() He reminds people that his mother, Dame Elisabeth, lived until 103 (“I’m sure he’ll never retire,” she told me when I interviewed her in 2010, a day after her 101st birthday). “I’m now convinced of my own immortality,” he famously declared after beating prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 69. Murdoch assiduously avoids any discussion of a future in which he isn’t in command of his media empire. Many of these episodes went unreported in the press, which was just how Murdoch liked it. ![]() In recent years, Murdoch has suffered a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and a torn Achilles tendon, a source close to the mogul told me. COVID was only the most recent medical emergency that sent Murdoch to the hospital. ![]()
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