Trophy wife’s life spiked in Sydney, splashed in China

HONG KONG: A controversial biography of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s glamorous third ‘trophy wife’ Deng Wendi, which was spiked by an Australian magazine that commissioned it amid charges of self-censorship, has now been splashed in a Chinese news magazine. 

The latest edition of New Century Weekly news magazine, which hit the stands on Thursday, carries the 10,000-word bio-profile of Wendi, Murdoch’s 39-year-old Chinese wife who some believe could be instrumental to the 76-year-old baron’s hopes of cracking open China’s closed media market. 

Murdoch married Wendi, who was working in his STAR TV in Hong Kong, in 1999, barely days after he divorced his second wife Anna after rancorous proceedings. 

Wendi’s colourful past — including at least two marriage-breaking relationships — has been published before, mostly in unflattering commentaries that speak of her as a “gold digger” who preys on older men.

However, media interest in Wendi has been revived in recent times following speculation that she may be gaining increasing clout within Murdoch’s $30 billion News Corp empire. That makes her one of the world’s most powerful women. 

The latest article, authored by Eric Ellis, a Singapore-based Australian journalist, was commissioned by Good Weekend magazine, and Ellis pieced together a definitive bio-profile of the reclusive Wendi after extensive travels that took in several continents and interviews with Wendi’s school friends, teachers — and the ex-wife of Wendi’s first (and much older) husband. However, Ellis’ article is far from salacious.

Nevertheless, when Good Weekend editor Judith Whelan spiked the story, it gave rise to speculation that a conflict of interest may have influenced the decision. (Good Weekend is owned by Farifax Media, in which Murdoch’s News Corp then had a 7.5% stake. (News Corp subsequently sold its stake.)

China has traditionally proved one of Murdoch’s unconquered ‘Final Frontiers’, and the media baron hasn’t always had it easy in the closed media market.

The Chinese leadership was distrustful of Murdoch, particularly after he said in a speech in 1993 that advances in communications technology had “proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” The Chinese leadership took that a personally.

They even feared that he had links to the CIA and would use his satellite television technology to undermine the Communist Party. Barely days after Murdoch’s speech, China banned the private ownership of satellite dishes in the country.  

Media commentators believe that if anybody can ‘deliver’ China to Murdoch, it’s Wendi. Ellis’ article quotes former STAR CEO Gary Davey as saying that News Corp has in the past been overrun by “fixers and influence-brokers” promising riches in China but not delivering.

Says Davey: “We’d have two or three a day: members of the Politburo who would show up with their hands out. It was just revolting… It was revolting….”

Wendi, on the other hand, is different, says Davey. Apart from an understanding of Chinese culture and language she also has “really intense business nous, one of the missing pieces of the China puzzle.”