On Day Two of the Rupert Murdoch-Wendi Deng divorce story, the why angle sparks juicy speculation. His wife looks like a shark, that’s for sure.
Curiouser and curiouser. Day Two of the Rupert Murdorch-Wendi Deng divorce story turned juicier when ex-British prime minister and Deng pal Tony Blair got dragged into it.
Soon after news broke Thursday that billionaire media mogul Murdoch, 82, had filed for divorce from his third wife after 14 years of marriage, journalists in the U.S. and the U.K. with close contacts to Murdoch and his media empire, News Corp., began twittering about a scandalous possible reason for split.
Said scandal turned out to be the claim that Deng, 44, had an affair with Blair, 60, who happens to be godfather of the couple’s two young daughters, Grace, 11, and Chloe, 9.
Blair, the former New Labor PM who was embraced politically by the conservative Tory/Republican Murdoch when he was in power, denied the claim through a spokesman today. But the way the denial was worded led to more speculation.
And it’s only Day Two! These opening stages suggest this divorce will not be handled in the customary manner of divorces among the high-and-mighty — discreet, amicable and behind closed doors — predicts Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff today.
“This is not amicable, it’s totally public, it’s a throw-down-the-gauntlet, we-are-going-to-war kind of thing,” says Wolff, a columnist for USA TODAY, The Guardian and Vanity Fair. That’s not the point. The point is, it’s juicy.
