As Rupert Murdoch divorces Wendi Deng, we ask if he’ll be requesting that the press ‘respect his privacy at this time’
That Rupert Murdoch filed for divorce from his wife Wendi Deng in New York State’s Supreme Court today is illustration that living with a tycoon isn’t necessarily quite the bed of roses that one would imagine.
A website named Deadline revealed the information this morning and a New York Times corporate media reporter, Amy Chozick, shared the information in a series of tweets that read:
“Company confirms the Deadline story. Rupert has filed for divorce. Wendi has been informed”.
“Ira E. Garr is Murdoch’s divorce lawyer. He will be busy”.
“Rupert Murdoch divorce filing says the ‘relationship between husband and wife has broken down irretrievably’ ”
Deng is Murdoch’s third wife and mother to two of his daughters. She is best known for slapping an assailant, Jonathan May-Bowles, whom attacked her husband whilst he was giving evidence to the culture, media and sport committee in July 2011.
In December 2012, Ying-Shu Hsu, a former nanny and Chinese tutor to the Murdoch and Deng’s children, spoke out about her time working for them. At the time Gawker reported:
“Working for Wendi, Hsu said, was like being in a ‘war zone’: ‘Everyone who works for her hates her and is scared of her’, she said. ‘When she’s there, it’s like a war zone’.”
“Deng was given to profanity-laced outbursts for seemingly minor affronts, Hsu said, often in front of her daughters. ‘She had a very bad temper and would get angry very easily. Once, when we were leaving the house, I forgot to bring a hair clip for one of the girls, and Wendi yelled at me. So I ran back into the house to get it, but I got the wrong one. Wendi threw it on the ground in front of the girls and everyone’. On another occasion, Hsu says, after a housekeeper turned on the baseboard heating at the Murdochs’ Arizona compound against Deng’s orders, ‘she went nuts—yelling, cursing… She would curse like that in front of the kids’.”
“‘Murdoch is a gentleman’, Hsu said. ‘He appreciated us at the end of the night. But she also curses Rupert all the time. A lot of F-words. She’s always yelling, crying. Murdoch is the calm type’.”
Will Mr Murdoch be asking the press to “respect his privacy at this time”?
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