Wendi Deng
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Wendi Murdoch. Originally Wendi Deng (simplified Chinese: 邓文迪; pinyin: Dèng Wéndí, originally 邓文革; pinyin: Dèng Wéngé; born 1969 in Xuzhou, China) is a former Vice President of Business Affairs at News Corporation’s Asian satellite television operation and is married to its chief executive Rupert Murdoch, one of the most powerful media owners in the world.
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[edit] Childhood
Wendi Deng was born 1969 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China. She has 2 sisters and one brother. Deng’s father was president of a Chinese factory, and her family was relatively wealthy compared to most Chinese residents at the time.
[edit] Move to the US
In 1985, she graduated from high school and enrolled in Guangzhou Medical College but dropped out at the end of the third year.
Wendi moved to America in 1988 under the sponsorship of Joyce Cherry of California, who taught Deng English when she was in China with her husband, Jake Cherry. When Deng arrived in California, she moved into the home of Joyce and Jake Cherry. Within a year after Deng's arrival, Joyce found compromising photos of Deng in a hotel room in Jake's possession. Joyce kicked out both Deng and Jake, both of whom moved in together and eventually married. Within months of this marriage, Jake kicked Deng out after finding out she had been seeing a man in his 20's, David Wolf (who late went on to become a PR executive at Burston-Marsteller). According to Joyce: "[Deng] disappeared when he couldn’t provide her graduate school." (http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14302/index5.html, New York Magazine is owned by New Corp. which, in turn, is run by Rupert Murdoch)
After obtaining her green card from her marriage to Jake, she promptly divorced him within months.
Deng went on to attend Yale University where she pursued her Master of Business Administration degree.
According to Next Magazine, during that time, Deng shared an apartment with her schoolmates and worked as a cosmetics salesgirl to make ends meet. However, according to more reliable sources, Deng had a lot of money and liked to show it off ("she always had the latest in computers, everything", according to her former classmates) and bragged she was married to a "rich American". That "rich American" husband, noted her classmates, had never been seen or heard from by anyone in the school throughout the entire time Deng studied there.
It has been reported in the media that during her MBA studies, Wendi Deng met Bruce Churchill from Star TV and obtained a position through him after receiving her MBA in 1997.
According to media sources run by Rupert Murdoch, Deng met Murdoch in 1999, the CEO of Star TV's parent company News Corporation. Murdoch divorced his wife of 31 years, Anna Torv, and married Deng within weeks afterwards. Shortly before their marriage was the marriage of Murdoch's oldest son, Lachlan, to model Sara O'Hare in Australia. Torv famously told the media that she asked Rupert to not bring Deng to this wedding, a request which Rupert complied with.
Deng and Rupert Murdoch have since had 2 daughters. Since their births, Deng has aggressively been strategizing (through Rupert) to give her children voting rights in a trust which has an interest in News Corp. that alone is valued at USD$6.1 billion. Until Deng's 2 daughters reach the age of 30, Deng would exercise those rights, which would give her 30% control over the trust.
Rupert had overestimated what his marriage to a Chinese woman could do for him. High-ranking Chinese officials have openly made disparaging remarks in Mandarin Chinese about Deng to her face in the presence of Rupert, who does not understand the language. At a 2006 White House dinner, Laura Bush and Mary Cheney politely refused to be photographed next to Deng[citation needed].
[edit] Marriage to Murdoch
They were married on June 25, 1999 aboard the Perini Navi yacht Morning Glory on the Hudson river. Deng and Murdoch have two children: Grace Helen Murdoch (born November 19, 2001) and Chloe Murdoch (born July 17, 2003).
There is reported to be tension between Murdoch and the children of his marriages to Anna over the terms of a trust holding the family's 28.5 percent stake in News Corporation, estimated in 2005 to be worth about $6.1 billion. Under the trust his children by Wendi share in the proceeds of the stock but have no voting privileges or control of the stock. Voting rights in the stock are divided 50/50 between Murdoch on the one side and his children by two prior marriages.
It is Murdoch's stated desire to have his children by Wendi given a measure of control over the stock proportional to their financial interest in it. However it does not appear that he has any strong legal grounds to contest the present arrangement and his three children by Anna Torv are said to be unwilling to make any such change.
[edit] Culture
The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Proud Flesh" is supposedly based on Wendi Deng's marriage.
