The media mogul’s planned nuptials prove yet again that, in age-gap relationships, it’s only ever women who get called cougars or gold diggers
“We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” said 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch of his planned summer nuptials. Ann Lesley Smith, his 66-year-old fiancee, remarked meanwhile, “I speak Rupert’s language. We share the same beliefs. For us both it’s a gift from God.” What manner of god would want Murdoch to live to be 184 is anyone’s guess, but obviously we wish the happy couple all the best.
Just as a thought experiment, though, imagine how Murdoch’s own media empire would take it if a 92-year-old woman announced her fifth engagement and asked the world to join her in looking forward to her next chapter. Obviously, this incorrigible romantic wouldn’t exist, because no woman of 92 would be allowed to occupy the public eye. Her relevance would have started to wane maybe 40 years before; she would have had a brief flash of the spotlight in her 50s, for the purposes of wondering how she had kept her six-pack – pray God she still has one, and isn’t in a “what she looks like now will amaze you” sidebar, for the bad reasons. After that, she would either make a dignified exit from public life, or she would be the Queen.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
