Posted in Divorce on June 14, 2013
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his third wife, Wendi Deng, are pursuing a divorce. Murdoch filed in New York this week, and a spokesman for his company, News Corp., has confirmed the split. Reasons for the separation have not been released.
Murdoch, 82, is the chairman of NewsCorp., which owns Fox News, 21st Century Fox, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, as well as several media outlets in the United Kingdom. The company will be splitting in two at the end of June, separating the television/film divisions from publishing and education.
Deng, 44, and Murdoch have two young children and reside in Manhattan. Murdoch also has four adult children with his previous wives. The couple married about a year after meeting in Hong Kong at a News Corp. party. They met before Murdoch had divorced his second wife. The Chinese-born Deng acquired a green card through her first marriage to a man 30 years her senior whose marriage was ended when he and Deng had an affair while she was in the USA as a student being sponsored by the couple. She has established a career working for NewsCorp., and she produced the film Snow Flower and The Secret Fan in 2011 for Fox Searchlight.
There have been rumors about discord between them over their children’s involvement in the family trust and future control over NewsCorp. Murdoch’s adult children have supposedly been seeking to hold sole control, and Murdoch is allegedly supporting them. There is also gossip that Deng has had an affair with the godfather of their children, who happens to be former British PM Tony Blair.
All of the rumors may not end up being confirmed, because Murdoch has control over a huge percentage of the media that would normally attempt to report it and because he is apparently trying to handle the situation as quietly as possible. The divorce documents show no evidence of wrongdoing and his choice of divorce lawyer and pre- and post-nuptials all seem to confirm this. The Murdochs signed a pre-nuptial agreement in 1999 and post-nuptial agreements in 2002 and 2004.
Source: Reuters, “Rupert Murdoch’s aim: A divorce with little fodder for tabloids,” Karen Freifeld, June 14, 2013.
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