News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch is calling it quits.
The 82-year-old billionaire has filed for divorce from wife Wendi Deng Murdoch after 14 years of marriage. Murdoch's divorce papers were handed to the New York State Supreme Court on Thursday morning, Reuters confirmed.
A spokesman said the relationship has been irretrievably broken for more than six months.
DAVID RENTAS/AP
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and television executive Wendi Deng pose aboard his yacht during their marriage voyage in New York Harbor in 1999. After 14 years, they are calling it quits.
This is Murdoch's third marriage. The couple are believed to be filing for joint custody of their children, Grace and Chloe.
Murdoch met the socialite, 38 years his junior, at a company party in Hong Kong. The couple tied the knot in 1999, less than a month after Rupert’s divorce from his former wife Anna Maria Torv Murdoch Mann was finalized.
He reportedly dished out a $1.7 billion divorce settlement to his last wife, including $100 million in cash, The Guardian reports.
Sky News (gif via NYmag.com
A gif from video footage recorded July 19, 2011, shows Wendi Deng (in pink) lunging toward a protester (far left) who threw a foam pie at Rupert Murdoch during a public hearing before a British Parliament committee in London.
Murdoch's most recent divorce filing comes just days before his company experiences a split of its own. News Corporation is dividing into two companies, one for its entertainment assets and another for its publishing business. Analysts said the couple's divorce is unlikely to have an effect on the corporate separation.
"I doubt it has a substantial impact on the spin," Gabelli & Co. analyst Brett Harriss told Reuters. "Given that it's his third wife, I see it unlikely that he didn't plan for this contingency."
The couple reportedly worked out a pre-nuptial agreement and have shares in trust for their children, according to the BBC.
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Wendi Deng is Rupert Murdoch's third wife. They have two daughters.
Friends describe Deng, 44, as a bold, hard-working woman who knows how to network with powerful people. The third daughter of factory director in Guangzhou, China, Deng pocketed just $20 a day when she first moved to the United States and got a job at a Chinese restaurant. She took night classes and was eventually accepted into Yale University. According to The New York Times, she currently works with stepson James Murdoch to improve News Corporation's strategy in China.
Deng made headlines after trying to swat away a foam pie thrown at Murdoch while he was testifying about the News International phone-hacking scandal in 2011.
The former competitive volleyball player managed to smack heckler Jonathan May-Bowles on the forehead before guards pinned him down.
“Nothing characterizes her more than that moment,” Diane von Furstenberg, a longtime friend, told The New York Times. “She is protective and fierce and not afraid of anything.”
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