News Corporation’s boss Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife Wendi Deng, the company confirms.
Rupert Murdoch files for divorce from Wendi Deng
The couple, who were married in 1999, have two children together.
According to a Hollywood gossip website, the couple filed their divorce papers at the New York state supreme court on Thursday morning.
In 2011, Ms Deng famously leapt to her husband’s defence to slap a protester who threw a pie at him as British MPs quizzed him over phone-hacking.
Mr Murdoch, 82, reportedly met his Chinese-born third wife in 1997, at a company party. They were married two years later, weeks after his divorce from Anna Mann.
He paid $1.7bn (£1bn) in his divorce settlement from his last wife, according to CNBC news.
Ms Deng, 44, is 38 years younger than the Australian-born media mogul.
The BBC’s Robert Peston says the couple had a pre-nuptial agreement and have held shares in trust for their children.
So our business editor believes the divorce is not likely to lessen the magnate’s grip on his media empire.
New York Times media reporter Amy Chozik tweets that, according to the divorce filing, the “relationship between husband and wife has broken down irretrievably”.
Ms Deng, who is reportedly the daughter of a factory director, grew up in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou in 1968 before leaving for the US at 19 to study.
She worked in a Chinese restaurant in California before going on to graduate from Yale University in 1996.
Ms Deng was later employed as an intern by Star TV, News Corp’s Asian satellite-television operation in Hong Kong, where she met Mr Murdoch during one of his visits.
The couple were married aboard a private yacht, and they have two daughters, Grace and Chloe.
Agencies
