How many children does Rupert Murdoch have; are they married and do they have kids?

In quick succession (wink wink), Rupert Murdoch has grown his family almost at the same pace of his global media empire.

The Australian media mogul has been married five times over the course of his illustrious career and was recently engaged for a fifth time to Ann Lesley Smith at the age of 92, before the couple called it off.

From three of these four marriages, Rupert Murdoch has welcomed six children, which may or may not serve as inspiration for a certain HBO show about a wealthy family with complicated siblings that is on its final season at time of writing - PeopleWorld has a look at Rupert’s potential successors:

Prudence MacLeod

Rupert married Australian air hostess Patricia Booker in 1956 and two years later became a father to Prudence Murdoch MacLeod in Adelaide.

Prudence, now 68-years-old, is a non-executive director in the media industry, currently sitting on the board of Times Newspapers, a subsidiary of her father’s company News Corporation.

Rupert’s eldest child and daughter, who has been described as the only one not ‘directly competing for Rupert’s business affections,’ has been married twice firstly to the highest earning hedge fund manager in London at the time called Crispin Odey, and then to Alasdair MacLeod, a businessman who began working for Rupert.

Although Prudence disapproved of Alasdair working for her father, the pair are still married and live in Sydney with their three children James, Angus and Clementine.

Elisabeth Murdoch

A decade after Prudence was born, Rupert welcomed his second daughter Elisabeth to the world with his second wife journalist Anna Torv - who he married the same year as his divorce to Patricia Booker.

Born in Sydney and educated in New York, Elisabeth began her career working for her father’s company and moved to London before she established her own television broadcasting company called Shine Limited in 2001.

After a decade, News Corporation acquired Shine in a controversial takeover which raised questions about nepotism, however to mark Elisabeth’s work to diversity in the arts and for charity, she was appointed a CBE in 2022.

While Elisabeth seemingly has inherited her father’s media magnate genes, she too has copied his romantic ways as she has been married three times and has four children of her own. 

Firstly in 1993 Elisabeth tied the knot with Rothschild financier Elkin Kwesi Pianim who she met at school before filing for divorce just five years later. In 2001, Elisabeth married PR executive Matthew Freud (son of former MP Sir Clement Freud and great-grandson of Sigmund Freud) at Blenheim Palace, and lastly said ‘I do’ to artist Keith Tyson in 2014.

Lachlan Murdoch

With six children, the question remains who is Rupert Murdoch’s media empire heir? That role seemingly falls to Lachlan Murdoch, his eldest son born in 1971.

Lachlan, who graduated from Princeton University with a degree in philosophy, is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, co-chairman of News Corp, executive and CEO of Fox Corporation and the founder of an Australian investment company.

Rupert took Lachlan under his wing at an early age to train at the Daily Mirror which in turn kick started his career as over two years later he returned to the family fold when Rupert named his eldest son the co-chair of News Corp in a move labelled as ‘succession planning.’ The father and son are currently embroiled in a number of court cases.

Unlike his older sisters, Lachlan has tied the knot only once in 1999 to British-born Australian actress and model Sarah O’Hare and has three children, sons Kalan and Aidan and daughter Aerin Elisabeth named after his sister and grandmother.

James Murdoch

Rupert and Anna’s third child James Murdoch was born in London in 1972 and follows a similar career path to his siblings and father by working in the media industry.

From 2015 to 2019, James was the CEO of 21st Century Fox while his other roles which he had before such as the chairman of Sky plc and executive vice-president of News Corp were called into question when he was involved in the ongoing phone hacking scandal, in which he was implicated.

Despite this, James works heavily in American politics by creating the Quadrivium Foundation with his wife Kathryn Hufschmid (m.2000) to fund social and political research groups, and has previously donated money to the Clinton Foundation and the Biden campaign.

James and Kathryn, who also works for the Clinton Climate Initiative, have three children namely Anneka (2003), Walter (2004) and Emerson (2008).

Grace Murdoch

Rupert reportedly met his third wife Wendi Deng while she was interning in Hong Kong at Star TV, and the pair were married within a year in 1999.

During their 13-year-marriage, Rupert and Wendi, who was 30 years his junior, had two daughters with the eldest born in 2001 called Grace.

Grace’s godparents reportedly include former Prime Minister Tony Blair, per the Hollywood Reporter, as well as Australian veteran actors Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

According to her LinkedIn, Grace is currently finishing her history degree at Yale University and has spent time interning at places such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Charlotte Tilbury and the Wall Street Journal.

Chloe Murdoch

Two years Grace’s junior is Rupert’s youngest daughter 20-year-old Chloe who is studying at Stanford University until 2025.

Far from a usual childhood, Chloe and her sister grew up between a New York City penthouse, an estate in Beverly Hills, California and a compound in Arizona with full-time staff.

Unlike her older sister who has over 20,000 followers on Instagram, Chloe has a private account on the social media platform.