In the years between the Murdochs’ marriage—and their divorce—a story emerged that could have come right off the pages of one of the tabloids produced by News Corporation. VFArchive
urdoch, Wendi, and Bruce Dover set off for Shanghai, where Dover had work to do, so he left Rupert with Wendi for a tour, according to Dover’s book. At six the next morning he found them in the hotel gym, he says, “pounding away on the exercise bike. There was a spark there.”
News of their romance provided payback time for the British tabloid press. First blood: a February 1999 cover story inheadlined, MURDOCH’S MISTRESS, THE SECRET LIFE OF THE WOMAN WHO SNARED THE BIG ONE. “Viagra-chomping Rupert Murdoch has been dating a Cantonese cutie,” wrote Hong Kong correspondent Steve Vines. “A colleague said: ‘The boss may be old enough to qualify for a bus pass, but they giggled like lovestruck teenagers.
“I saw she wasn’t very nice to her husband,” says a Chinese friend. “Her voice, very rude! When you speak English, what you say can be very mean.” The friend joined the newlyweds for dinner one night at the Mercer, where Murdoch, who had a cold, dared to stick his chopsticks into the communal serving plate. “Wendi said, ‘Rupert! Don’t do that! How many times I told you?’ ” says the friend.
She finally hired the famed French designer Christian Liaigre, and the triplex—after consultation with a feng shui master—became a showplace.“First it was just ‘I’m this nice Chinese lady, here to make him happy, and I don’t want kids.’ Then it was ‘I want kids.’ She escalated over the years in terms of bullying him.”
Shortly after the birth of Grace, the elder, in 2001, Wendi told Bruce Dover, “I’m not going to be a stay-at-home society wife.”he quickly returned to work, traveling to China with Murdoch’s younger son, James, who had been dispatched by his father as chief executive of Star TV. By then she had met Queen Elizabeth and redecorated another of the Murdoch homes. With her new name came thethe Chinese term for connections, and she used them to court China’s super-elite.
The girls were hardly neglected. Thanks to Wendi, they were both fluent in Chinese. “Everybody at home speaks Mandarin except me,” Murdoch said playfully on Chinese TV. “So they only tell me what they think I need to know.” Grace and Chloe went on to attend Brearley, the exclusive private girls’ school in Manhattan. One friend remembers, “Wendi would say, ‘Look at my daughters! So beautiful and soThey were soon even richer—equal beneficiaries of the Murdoch Family Trust.
Working for the Murdochs, beginning in 2004, was an assignment in hell, the nanny said, describing Wendi as a cheap, petty, f-word-screaming, fiery-tempered dominatrix, who terrified her household staff, which in New York alone included two secretaries, one cook, two housekeepers, a nanny, a tutor, and a laundry person. “Everyone who works for her hates her and is scared of her,” the nanny said.
“Chris said, ‘Do you want to go to dinner with Wendi and Rupert?’ ” remembers Lori DeWolfe, the estranged wife of Chris DeWolfe, the co-founder of MySpace, who was later alleged to be one of Wendi Deng’s lovers. They met at Matsuhisa in Los Angeles to discuss the 2006 News Corp. retreat, which would be held in Pebble Beach, with speakers Bono and Tony Blair. News Corp.
“Wendi took control—she would be the digital guru for [News Corp.], and Rupert didn’t understand [technology],” says a former Murdoch lieutenant. “Which started her going out to Silicon Valley. She would meet these switched-on guys in Silicon Valley, and they would go to New York to meet with the bankers, then go out on the town, while Rupert would go to bed with his Ovaltine.
“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, I love that Wendi Murdoch,’ ” says a friend. “She could be a bitch or a snob, but she wasn’t. She was young and excited, like a teenage girl.” Many of her friends hosted screenings of her movie and sang her praises in print. “Wendi is all about friendship between women,” said Nicole Kidman. “She is the best publicist anyone could ever have,” said Hugh Jackman after Wendi flew entertainment-industry heavyweights to see his one-man show in San Francisco.
She was away increasingly, at the Oscars, the Met Gala, Art Basel, and even a dinner for Chinese president Hu Jintao at the White House, which she attended alone. Soon, even when the Murdochs were together, they were apart. “Rupert would go home, and she’d keep partying,” says a friend. “She was shy and unassuming, and then she became star-crazy! She was like, ‘I have to have fun! Let’s go party! Let’s go to this party and that party.’ She never wanted to stop.
“Oh, yes, she is very tough, very tough,” said Rupert. “A successful man needs a critical wife. It brings him down to earth.” The former News Corp. employee in the U.K. adds, “He clearly hurt himself, and he made some excuse that he tripped over something in the office. He made excuses that he wasn’t well. He only talked about what happened later.” The source continues, “Ultimately, he just wanted to get through and not have any problem in the marriage made public. Because he wanted to have the children protected and believe they were in a nice, happy home.
Later, Rupert would lament that he was galled by the sense of permission he felt had been bestowed on Wendi by her close friend Kathy Freston, who once wrote about listening to “the inner workings of your heart and mind.” She said, “If you are tempted to have an affair, be aware that this too is an opportunity to expand your consciousness. . . .
Murdoch spent the evening of the divorce filing with his sons, Lachlan and James, in New York, then flew to Los Angeles the next day. “Given the fact that there was abuse before, and that she was extremely emotional, [they] didn’t want her alone with him, much less under the same roof,” says the source.
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