Kim Masters: The Last Time I Covered a Rupert Murdoch Divorce
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When I heard that Rupert Murdoch’s fourth marriage was not going to last long enough to get to the seven-year itch, it brought back vivid and somewhat unsettling memories of his previous marital split from the remarkable Wendi Deng.
Why I would ever have anything to do with Rupert Murdoch’s marital problems is a valid question, and one I asked myself at the time.
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Murdoch had married Deng, more than 30 years his junior, in June 1999. In June 2013, when the world learned that the marriage had foundered, The Hollywood Reporter had not picked up the news with the speed that our editor at the time deemed sufficient. As she gazed at the editorial staff gathered around a conference table that morning, her displeasure seemed to lower the temperature in the room by at least 15 degrees. “How can we advance this story?” she asked. I hardly thought I was expected to answer. Yes, I had covered Murdoch business, but not his personal business.
To my dismay, her gaze settled on me. I had no clue where to begin. The reasons for the split were still a mystery, but how was I supposed to unravel that? Yet I had noticed over the years that much of the Murdoch family business was somehow public. They were like the Kennedys: People in the media world who had never met them called them by their first names and chattered about their lives and family rivalries. I decided to call anyone I knew who had any connection of any kind to Murdoch’s businesses.
To my surprise, one of the first people I called did not hesitate. Then this source told me to check my email. A photo of Deng with Rupert and Tony Blair appeared on the screen. At first I could not grasp the meaning of the image. What did Tony Blair — the former prime minister of England, Murdoch’s political ally, godfather to one of Rupert’s young daughters with Deng — have to do with this?
It hadn’t been on that many people’s radar, but it turned out there had been some simmering gossip about Deng and Blair in the media world. Two years earlier, in 2012, author Michael Wolff had tweeted, “Wendi Murdoch and Tony Blair: you heard it here first,” prompting journalist Jacob Weisberg to tweet, “Are you suggesting what I think?” That was as far as it went, then.
With the split in the open, my source told me it wasn’t just about Blair. He said Deng had enjoyed quite a few close friendships with men. (At the time of the split, Rupert was 82 and Deng was 44.) There was former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe.
Given the ease with which I had picked up this information, it seemed to me that Rupert must have approved the idea of floating it out there to someone in the press. Two things seemed clear: We had a story, and we were going to have to be euphemistic about it. I was in the midst of what I believe to be the most tabloid reporting of my career.
The story, which would be titled “Wendi Deng Blindsided by Divorce Filing (Analysis)” noted that sources had floated a “theory” that the marriage was “strained by Wendi’s socializing and friendships with a series of men over a number of years.” Of course we had made calls to Schmidt and DeWolfe, who were in the U.S., and got no real pushback, though a friend of the Google co-founder told THR it was “doubtful” that Schmidt had a romantic relationship with Deng. (DeWolfe later denied that any interaction with Deng was romantic.) By then, it was the middle of the night in London. We asked one of our reporters there to call Blair’s office at first light.
I doubt he relished the task (“Hello. Did the former prime minister have a … you know … did he … ?”) but he did it. Blair’s spokesman denied any romantic relationship but made two mistakes: not going off the record and more importantly, using the present tense. “If you are asking if they are having an affair, the answer is no,” the spokesperson said. Other outlets instantly picked up, and made hay over, the choice of words.
The penny soon dropped with Blair’s office. In short order, we were threatened with a lawsuit. Unlikely as it seemed that he would actually proceed, I wasn’t enjoying the situation. Libel laws in England are not great from the reporter’s perspective, and just being right may not be enough. It wasn’t without risk, but we stood our ground. We did allow Blair to offer a blanket denial of any relationship.
A year later, Vanity Fair published a down-and-dirty account of the marital breakup, revealing a note that Deng had written, apparently to herself, that read in part, “I’m so so missing Tony. Because he is so so charming and his clothes are so good. He has such good body and he has really really good legs Butt . . . And he is slim tall and good skin. Pierce blue eyes which I love. Love his eyes. Also I love his power on the stage . . . and what else and what else and what else . . . ” The piece asserted that the note could have been evidence if the divorce had ended up in a trial. There was a lot more detail in the Vanity Fair piece, along with a joint statement from Murdoch and Deng: “Given the complicated dynamics of our family, we made the decision early on in this process not to engage in public allegations or respond to negative claims.”
With Jerry Hall, Murdoch found love again, though apparently not the kind that lasts. I have no clue how he feels about all this at 91, but I know what I feel: Pure gratitude that I don’t need to figure out what went wrong this time.
