Thursday 23 June 2022 10:27 PM RICHARD KAY: Jerry Hall was stuck in Succession... when she wanted to be in Ab ... trends now

For both parties, it looked like a marriage made in Heaven — a classic case of opposites attracting. Jerry Hall brought the glamour of the catwalk and the cachet of rock’n’roll royalty through her decades-long romance with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. Rupert Murdoch, media titan and billionaire, brought just about everything else.

Even so, they were an unlikely couple — she mesmerising with her Texan drawl, long legs, generous mouth and loving the spotlight; he the restless deal-maker, happiest flitting by private jet and blacked-out limo from boardroom to corporate headquarters.

And of course there was that 26-year age gap. Yet somehow this culture clash seemed to work — at least to start with. In public they were tactile and affectionate, kissing and holding hands like giddy-in-love teenagers. For a woman who had traded aggressively on her beauty and sexuality, Jerry seemed to have found a contentment missing from earlier relationships.

She revealed as much in an interview well before their 2016 wedding. ‘I have gone out with younger men and they’re great fun, they’ve got enthusiasm. Stamina! But I think older men are much better lovers.’

In what now reads uncannily like a match-making application, she added: ‘I don’t want to have children, because I already have four. And I don’t want to be bossed around because I’ve got my own money, you know. So it’s got to be the right person. But I do quite like the idea of having a companion.’

Yesterday, as details emerged that they are to divorce after six years of marriage, the piquant question remained: was Rupert Murdoch, now 91, a lover with stamina or a mere companion? Or were they, after all, simply incompatible?

Jerry Hall, now 65, who had her children with Jagger, was from one world. Murdoch, the ruthless, consummate businessman, was from another. All the same, the news of their break-up was as unexpected as their first appearance in public together at the 2015 Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham.

Insiders admitted it was the most improbable of love matches. For months after their wedding, he was as infatuated with her as she seemed fulfilled with him.

They were rarely apart and embarked on a property spending spree, from an £11.25 million Georgian mansion close to the River Thames near Henley, Oxfordshire — where they spent the 2020 lockdown — to a Cotswolds manor house earmarked for restoration, and a 340,000-acre ranch in Montana near Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.

The vast spread, which cost Murdoch an eye-watering £228 million, was the most romantic purchase of all, bought to reconnect Miss Hall with her childhood memories of growing up in rural Texas. They were scarcely short of places to rest their heads anyway: there was already the $50 million New York apartment, a vineyard and winery in Los Angeles, and a sheep and cattle farm in Mr Murdoch’s native Australia. As well as a Mayfair apartment for when the media mogul is in London.

He was here this week for his annual summer party, held at the Serpentine Gallery, where Jerry’s absence was the first visible sign that something was up.

She has become an indispensable presence at Murdoch’s side for these social gatherings where her slow speech and endearments to her husband, whom she calls Rupe, are as familiar as the Pol Roger champagne they serve their guests. On Monday night, those who asked about her whereabouts were simply told that she was ‘in LA’.

So what has gone wrong and how has a relationship that began with Murdoch cutting down on work to spend more time with his fourth wife soured so spectacularly? Some are convinced that the age gap was more pronounced than it at first appeared.

‘For a man of 91, Rupert is remarkably fit but even he can’t hold back the years,’ says one figure who knows the couple well. ‘He wears these soft shoes and doesn’t like to stand up for long and is obsessed with his health. He’s getting a little deaf, too.

‘She’s that much younger and still likes going to parties, going to the beach and having fun. Being a media geisha or corporate wife doesn’t amuse her.

‘Endlessly circling the globe on the company jet to be at his side for some corporate shindig is no longer much of an attraction to her, if it truly ever was.

‘The fact is Jerry’s surprisingly lazy while Murdoch is still the workaholic he has always been. I think the gloss started coming off the romance after lockdown.

‘To start with, when they were dating, she used to talk admiringly of how he was like a Texan, even though he is Australian. She loved that he was manly and an alpha-male type.’

Another insider says: ‘She had started signing off her emails “Jerry Murdoch” and I know she was complaining about losing her identity.’

It is understood there have

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