Rupert Murdoch files for divorce from Wendi!!
Wow! This is shocking and looks like Rupert is making changes both in his business AND personal life!
According to deadline.com, Wendi and Rupert’s marriage has been on the rocks for some time!
There is no question that despite divorce clouds Murdoch’s #1 priority was the News Corp split, not his from Wendi’s, and ”to get it done and get it done right. So he’s had a lot on his plate. What was once one is now two,” an insider explained . “The divorce happened very quickly.”
The couple met in 1997, at a News Corp party in Hong Kong where she worked at Murdoch-owned Star Television. They married in 1999, less than a month after his divorce from ex-wife Anna Maria Torv Murdoch was finalized. Wendi is perhaps most vividly and fondly remembered by the general public for standing up for her husband and clocking Jonathan May-Bowles after he threw a pie at Murdoch during his highly publicized testimony before a British parliamentary committee in connection with the News International phone-hacking scandal. (“Mr Murdoch, your wife has a very good left hook,” the chairman of the House Of Commons panel said admiringly.) Wendi quickly earned the nickname of ‘Tiger Wife’ on Twitter.
Love this!
As part of the divorce from Anna, Rupert agreed that his existing children would inherit control of News Corp via the family trust. Wendi wanted that changed after giving birth to their two daughters, Grace and Chloe. But Rupert punted, actually startling Wendi by disclosing in a 2006 Charlie Rose TV interview that Deng’s girls would not have voting rights in his family trust. He said they’d have an equal economic stake, but the decision-making would be left to his other children: Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James. “The fight that happened between Rupert and Wendi, after the program aired, is News Corp legend,” author Michael Wolff said in his book The Man Who Owns The News: Inside The Secret World Of Rupert Murdoch.
Since then, news reports noted that Wendi emerged with her own independent career and immersed herself in a social circle that includes David Geffen, Larry Ellison, Tony Blair, Nicole Kidman and Bono “one that is often free of her husband’s presence,” to quote The New York Times. She is co-founder and co-CEO of the film production company Big Feet Productions. With the wife of former MGM exec Harry Sloan, Wendi co-produced the 2011 film Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, which was released by News Corp’s Fox Searchlight. (It generated $11.3M in global ticket sales, including $1.3M from domestic theaters.)
The marriage is Rupert’s third, and Wendi’s second.
Wonder what the nasty rumors are going to start coming to light!
See our interview with Wendi here.