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(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
BY MATT PICHT
Media tycoon and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch is separating from his third wife Wendi Deng
Murdoch after 14 years.
Deadline Hollywood broke the news early Thursday morning, noting Murdoch had filed divorce
papers with the New York State Supreme Court. A company rep soon confirmed the news.
Deng is a Chinese-born American citizen, who met Rupert Murdoch at a company party
in 1997. The couple married in 1999, three weeks after Murdoch divorced his previous
wife of 32 years.
The 38-year age gap and the speed of Murdoch's
remarriage had many observers branding Deng a gold digger. But she's proved herself an
able media mogul as well, handling Myspace's Chinese operations and producing her own movie.
(Via CNN)
And besides, how many trophy wives would
do this for their husbands?
That's Deng in the pink suit there, defending
Murdoch from a pie to the face during the news corp phone-hacking hearings of 2011.
(Via PBS)
Murdoch's divorce will reportedly not affect
the company in any way, though it's still unclear what role the couple's two children
will have in the family business. As The New York Times points out, Wendi has had to fight
for her children's rights in the past.
"In 2006, a battle broke out when Mr. Murdoch
said ... Grace and Chloe ... would not have the same voting rights as his children from
his previous two marriages. The couple worked out a more mutually acceptable agreement."
His last divorce from previous wife Anna was one of the world's costliest — with his
ex receiving $1.7 billion dollars of his assets.