11 September 2016 Karlie is at the US Open with sketchy wealthy and elite people:
The Who’s Who of Who’s That
[I know you know these vignettes are meant to be scanned. We're just putting Karlie Kloss and Lily Donaldson into context (we're working toward that, anyway). Get a sense of the wealth, the connections, the sketchy deeds. We're working back to modeling, yacht girls, and then how that relates to Taylor's (possible, and sometimes alleged) ex-girlfriends]
Wendi Deng [Murdoch]
In her own words:
“Why is your business strategy in China so bad?” If legend is to be believed, this is the first thing Wendi Deng ever said to her future husband during a packed staff meeting at Star TV in Hong Kong.
Known for:
She is perhaps best known for being the third wife of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation. Wendi was married to Murdoch from 1999 to 2013 before getting divorced, and the couple had two children together.
Movies-
In 2011, Murdoch co-produced her first film with Florence Sloan,[28] Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a movie about two footbound children in Qing dynasty China,[29][30] directed by Wayne Wang.[31]
The film won the Golden Angel Award at the Chinese American Film Festival.[32]
She also produced the Netflix documentary Sky Ladder[33] which showcased the art of Cai Guo-Qiang[34] and directed by Academy Award-winning director Kevin MacDonald.[35]
The film premiered in January 2016 at the Sundance Film Festival.[36] Sotheby's hosted a private reception and screening of the film in October 2016 before the film's Netflix debut.[37]
She has also appeared in episodes of the TV series Charlie Rose
Wendy is also widely known for counter-attacking a pie-thrower-
Martinson added: "The man lobbed a plate of shaving foam into Murdoch's face at point-blank range. "Wendi who had been sitting behind her husband, in an astonishing reaction, was on her feet lobbing the plate back at her husband's assailant before James got up."
"James looked stunned, several members of the room gasped, but Wendi then sat on the desk calmly wiping foam from her husband's face. There was foam all over her blue-painted toes as well as two police officers who immediately grabbed him. Labour MP Tom Watson, one of the members of the select committee, told Murdoch: "Your wife has a very good left hook."
Her Bio:
Wendi Deng was born on 8 December 1968 in the eastern Chinese city, Xuzhou, a place she calls 'a funny little town in the countryside'. Her engineer parents later moved to the southern city of Guangzhou where Deng's father served as director of a machinery factory. The family lived in a three-bedroom apartment, which was unusually large by Chinese standards. She grew up 'very poor. We didn't have hot water.' One of four children, she was, she later said, so deprived that a dream of hers was one day to eat meat regularly.
Deng was the family name. Deng was originally named Deng Wen Ge, which means 'Cultural Revolution' - not an unusual name at the time, when loyalty to Mao Zedong's policies was crucial, and her parents were both loyal members of the Communist Party. She later compressed her Chinese first name into Wendi.
"We've known each other since fourth grade, through middle school, and we lived together, we even shared clothes," says Li. "We biked to school, exercised together and studied at night together," she says. Li's teenage daughter - the only child the state allows her - is dependent on her father's policeman salary of around A$200 a month. Li replies. I ask Li if Wendi ever gave voice to her ambitions. "She always wanted to go to America and now she has realized that. She loves children; she wanted to have a lot of children."
She became a competitive volleyball player.[13][14] Wendi Deng's volleyball coach, Wang Chongsheng, remembers her as "a calm girl, not very talkative": Wenjing, meaning demure without being shy. Her high-school supervisor, Xie Qidong, says that Wendi had to catch up on classes during the year she was under his care. "She lagged behind other students because of playing volleyball," he says. Xie persuaded Wendi to give up sport and devote her energies to the upcoming university-entry exams. "Because she had good health, she could stay very late at night to make up her study," he says. "She has a struggling spirit and made big progress. I also would say she is smart. She studied ferociously and, according to a childhood friend, slept only three hours a night - good practice for her later New York partying. The cramming was very effective: her exam score reached the first-class university entry standards."
In 1985, enrolled in Guangzhou Medical College by the age of 16, but in 1988 decided not to study medicine. Instead, she moved to the United States on a study permit. She told UK Vogue: “I was willing to do anything [in America]. People would say to me ‘Oh you must be missing home’, but I had grown up hard. I was so happy to be there. I had never even been in a supermarket before coming to America. At home, my parents wouldn’t let me open the refrigerator, because they worried I’d damage the door by opening it too many times.”
She enrolled at California State University, Northridge,[15] where she studied economics and was among the top scoring students.[16][17] After obtaining a BA in Economics Deng earned an MBA from Yale University.[10] Yale requires each of its MBA students to work as an intern.
Wendi Deng sat next to Bruce Churchill, on a plane, and the two got talking. He was the COO of Hong Kong’s Star TV, (in 1993, the Murdoch-owned News Corporation had bought a controlling stake). At that time, Churchill oversaw the Fox TV branch in Los Angeles. Wendi lacked experience in the entertainment industry, but her credentials otherwise were impressive. She had an Ivy League business degree and is fluent in Mandarin, English, and even developed a strong command of Indonesian during her time living in the country, attributes of particular value to an outfit like News Corp's struggling Asian satellite service. Knowing how valuable - and how rare - a savvy mainlander could be for a Western-owned business in Hong Kong that was desperate to appear China-friendly, Churchill promptly hired her.
A Star colleague remembers Wendi's first week of work, in May 1996, when she set about introducing herself to the mostly male, mostly expatriate-Australian executive staff. "We were all there to learn… but Wendi would say, ‘I'm going to meet that guy,'" the colleague recalls. "So she would waltz in to someone important's office, unannounced, and exclaim, ‘Hello, I'm Wendi, I'm the intern ... um, who are you?' It was excruciating. It made some people uncomfortable, but she would get away with it. Gary Davey, Star's CEO from 1993 to 1999, remembers Wendi being "a little bit clumsy; she didn't entirely under-stand the traditional niceties of corporate behavior." It was, he says, "very refreshing. She was fearless, full of charming natural confidence. She didn't have that [Communist] Party arrogance about her…
Wendi Deng left Star TV after a few months to finish her MBA at Yale. Gary Davey says that the office workers thought it was the last they would see of her, but some months later Wendi showed up again. It was 1997, and Star was on the rise. The colleagues she'd farewelled the year before had been promoted and, as one executive says, "there was a well-oiled machine operating." Wendi, now earning about US$80,000 a year, was reassigned to improve Star's sluggish effort in China, seeking outlets for its music channel. A former News executive who worked with Wendi in China says, "she thinks she knows it better than she actually does," and points out that she hasn't lived there for about 20 years. She led the Murdoch family's Chinese internet investments and helped form business links with China for high-speed video and internet access.[22] "This was perfect for her, because it was just schmoozing; you couldn't actually do much in China," a colleague recalls. "She knew some people, but it wasn't like she was the president's daughter. I don't think she had any existing network, but she just started making one. She had no fear."
She is depicted as having been well prepared for meetings and anything but shy. She is said to have shown no hesitation about walking unannounced into a senior executive's office to discuss the latest Chinese entrepreneur she had met or government official she had contacted. Within one year, she became a vice president.[10]
So how did she meet her future husband, Rupert Murdoch?
Several stories were circulating through Star TV:
One is that she impressed Rupert in the office with a sharp business plan. In 1997, Deng caught Murdoch's eye during a staff meeting in Hong Kong when she asked an intelligent question and approached him after the meeting, according to New York Magazine.
Orrrrr, Gary Davey claims he introduced them, albeit by phone. He was in Delhi; Murdoch was in Japan en route to Shang-hai, and needed an interpreter. "I told her to go to the airport, meet this guy and take him up to Shanghai," Davey recalls. In 1998, Deng worked as Murdoch's interpreter when he was in Shanghai and Beijing, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Another version has it that she gatecrashed a Hong Kong dinner he attended, contriving to spill wine on his lap.
Rupert told Vanity Fair magazine in October 1999 that when Wendi visited London on Star business in June 1998, he - "a recently separated and lonely man" - took her out for dinner. "I talked her into staying a couple of extra days and that was the start of it," he said.
And lastly, according to British media, Murdoch was in town addressing the staff when a gutsy Deng suddenly asked, “Why is your business strategy in China so bad?”
Take your pick.
By that summer, there were rumors circulating at Star TV that the two were having an affair, despite the 37 year age difference. In 1998 Wendi became furtive and giggly, and colleagues began to think something was afoot. She took short vacations to Paris and London with someone she described as "my new boyfriend, an older guy", returning with expensive gifts. A News Corporation executive recalls "a weird period when the office started gossiping. Then we started hearing Rupert-isms from Wendi and Wendi-isms from Rupert." Colleagues saw Wendi at Hong Kong's Grand Hyatt Hotel at unusual hours. Then, Rupert and Wendi were spotted holding hands as they strolled around The Peak, a popular lovers' haunt. "She often said she liked older men," a colleague says, "even before she'd met Murdoch."
Indeed, says a close observer, 'When she hooked up with Rupert, everyone reeled backwards - very much so.' she 'certainly wasn't the Killer Goddess she became with Rupert later', said another Hong Konger. She wasn't, a third added, at all glamorous; she wore 'terrible, broken-down shoes'. She was an unsophisticated mainlander among sophisticated Hong Kong-raised Chinese.
Murdoch told senior Star TV executives in the northern autumn of 1998 that his relationship with Deng was "serious". Star TV's then-chairman, Gareth Chang, told Murdoch that it was a bad idea for Deng to remain on staff, given her personal relationship with the parent company's chairman. That wouldn't be a problem, Murdoch replied, because Deng would be resigning and moving with him to New York.
The Most Expensive Divorce of All Time:
In May, 1999 Murdoch separated from his then-wife of 31 years, Anna Torv. Negotiations over a divorce settlement dragged on for nearly 12 months, as her lawyers tried to determine the extent of News Corp's global assets. Murdoch paid former wife Anna Torv a reported $1.7 billion (including $110 million in cash). The former News Corporation executive said he understands that Anna could have gone to court to argue that she was entitled to 50% of the family stock in the entertainment empire after their 32-year marriage, but agreed not to if her husband created a trust which would be controlled by her three children – Elisabeth, Lachlan and James –and their older sister through Murdoch's first marriage, Prudence. At the time Murdoch's stock was worth about $3.9bn, which means the children would have been assigned stock then valued at just under $2bn.
Murdoch's divorce from Torv became final in June 1999, and he married Deng on his 155-foot yacht, Morning Glory, 17 days later (June 25, 1999). Murdoch was 68 at the time and 30 years Deng’s senior. He told the 82 guests that 'he loved her and would take care of her, for ever and ever.'
Murdoch said, "She's intelligent, but she's not going to [take over News]". Her friends were incensed. "She didn't marry him to sit at home and be a society wife," says one. Wendi did take control at home, shifting the hitherto unfashionable Murdoch into turtlenecks, moving the uptown guy to SoHo in downtown Manhattan, getting him to the gym and drinking healthy smoothies. She overshared her husband's use of Viagra- 'but he doesn't really need it' - and the couple met the challenge of Murdoch's prostate cancer by having his sperm frozen. They had two daughters: Grace, born in 2001, and Chloe, born in 2003.
The daughters grew up in Manhattan and attended the prestigious Brearley School. The two spent much of their time shuttling between family mansions across Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Arizona, as per Guest of a Guest.
According to her LinkedIn, Grace is currently completing her bachelor’s degree in history and East Asian literature at Yale (class of 2025) and has done internships at WeWork, The Wall Street Journal, Goop, Fox News, Charlotte Tilbury, and Pace Gallery. CNN Business reports that Chloe studies at Stanford (class of 2026). Both being half-Chinese, the youngest Murdochs are also both reportedly fluent in Mandarin.
Wendi mothered them and Murdoch. When one acquaintance went for a drink at the Murdochs', Wendi was out of the room, tucking in the children. When she came back, she wiped Murdoch's mouth.
The two were married for 14 years before Murdoch filed for divorce in June 2013, saying the marriage had “broken down irretrievably”. Deng was said to be “blindsided” by the filing, according to Vanity Fair. Deng knew nothing of the lightning strike to come; some say that when she arrived at her daughters' school to pick the girls up, a fellow mother said that she was sorry to hear the news. 'What news?' said Deng. And that was that. The queen is dead - long live Jerry Hall.
In February 2014, The Daily Telegraph and Vanity Fair alleged that Wendi Murdoch might have had an affair with her daughter Grace’s godfather, Tony Blair— allegations which the former UK Prime Minister has always firmly denied. Murdoch was alerted to the alleged betrayal after he was shown an email written by Deng.
Deng denies that anything happened, but in 2014, The Mail reported a series of email exchanges between Deng and Blair, which had allegedly fuelled Murdoch’s suspicion of the two and were revealed during divorce proceedings. Not only was it revealed that she had invited Tony Blair out to Murdoch’s ranch in Carmel, California, while her husband was elsewhere, but it emerged she had been in the habit of writing herself notes, and – in a textbook error – not in Chinese. Vanity Fair also revealed a note reportedly written by Deng:
“Oh shit oh shit … whatever why I’m so missing Tony. Because he is 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 …”
While she emerged triumphant after the pie-throwing defense incident – particularly in China – Deng’s reputation took a battering after the divorce. Vanity Fair and others reported that the reason for the couple’s split was that Deng had been having illicit affairs with not only Prime Minister Tony Blair but Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt.
Assets:
Murdoch, chairman at News Corp and Fox, controlled about 30 percent stake worth roughly $US8.7 billion. At the time of his divorce to Wendi this is how Murdoch’s business looked: As the chairman of News Corp he had a pay package worth over $20 million annually but his overall worth is put at £11.2billion by Forbes. News Corp itself is valued at $70.7 billion. Among its - and his - assets are 175 newspapers, including The Sun and The Sunday Times, Twentieth Century Fox Studio, and 35 TV stations, among them Fox News. He was eventually succeeded by son Lachlan.
Investments-
In 1999 and 2000, Wendi and her step-son James went on an internet spending spree in China, buying up community websites such as NetEase, SinoBIT, Sinobyte, 21CN and RenRen. All had high profiles in the heady days before the dotcom bust; today, most of them have been wound down by News, with millions of dollars lost. "Her choice of business partners in China has been odd," says a News China colleague.
She has also invested in tech start-ups including Oscar, Snapchat, Uber and Warby Parker.[24][10]
Cars-
Among the cars he is known to have around the world are three Range Rovers, each a different color, and a $55,000 Lexus GS450H.
Yachts-
They had married on June 25, 1999, 17 days after his 2nd divorce became final. The twilight ceremony took place on his garland-bedecked yacht, Morning Glory.
The 200-foot superyacht Vertigo, the seventh largest sailing yacht in the world, cost about $80 million.
It boasts six staterooms, a swimming pool, a gym and a crew of 11.
It won 'Greatest Design' at the 2012 Monaco Yacht Show.
The mogul also owned the 183-foot Rosehearty which has five luxury suites and is available for charter - at $370,000 a week.
Less than three months after filing for divorce from Deng, Murdoch listed the 184-foot sailing yacht. Apparently Wendi used it more than Rupert since he worked a lot. The asking price: $29.7 million.
Helicopter-
And party she did: out at the Box until 6am; flying back by helicopter from the Hamptons one night with Rupert, one observer recalls, she told him to go home - she was heading out.
Private jets & vacations-
Murdoch has two private jets:
one of them being a Boeing 737 with custom-built interior and a price tag of $62-$82 million, depending on specifications.
His other jet is a Gulfstream 550, which can carry up to 18 passengers and with a reputation as one of the most stylish long-range business airplanes. Prices start at £42.9 million.
Guest of a Guest reports that the daughters of America’s 31st richest person (according to Forbes) have been seen taking a sailing boat out with friends, as well as embarking on luxurious safaris, private jets and birthday parties in St. Tropez – it’s no surprise that Chloe and Grace took up the perks of the billionaire life.
Real Estate-
[some of these may be different descriptions of the same place, or additional residences, I
couldn’t tell]
The couple's first formal home was a loft on Prince Street.
Wendi showed a savvy side when she did a rare interview - with the New York Times' real-estate pages, in October 2005 - ostensibly to help sell the hard-to-shift SoHo loft after Rupert had bought their new apartment on Fifth Avenue.
That apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue, one of New York's most desirable addresses overlooking Central Park, cost $44 million in 2005. She revamped the enormous triplex that had previously been owned by Laurance Rockefeller.
His most recent (known) acquisition was the $30 million, 13-acre Moraga Vineyards in Bel Air, LA
Which included a mansion, a guest house, office space and a wine cave.
He had an 11-bed villa in Beverly Hills.
A ranch near Carmel, California.
And a luxury apartment in Mayfair.
Wendi moved her parents to New York soon after marrying Murdoch, installing them in an apartment in Queens, in the middle-class Chinese neighborhood of Flushing.
They were "pretty bewildered; they had no English," the friend says, describing them as "very nice people" but "beaten down" after living much of their life under Mao.
Wendi's parents, a generation younger than their son-in-law, were staying at the couple's London home, which Wendi has remodeled in a modern Chinese minimalist style.
She restored a vast house in Beijing.
The Murdochs have reportedly paid US$5 million for a traditional siheyuan (four-walled courtyard) house in the shadow of the Forbidden City; Hong Kong
And, reportedly a home in Melbourne.
Art-
Murdoch is, not surprisingly, a serious collector. Like a lot of Chinese buyers, she started
with Asian artists:
Cai Guo-Qiang
Lee Ufan
Wang Guangle
Jia Aili
Wang Yan Cheng
But in her Fifth Avenue living room, overlooking Central Park, there is an Agnes Martin
above the mantel, and on another wall a Mark Grotjahn.
Artsy-
Founded in 2009 as a partner for galleries selling art online, Artsy says its monthly sales have doubled in the past year. Murdoch supplied seed money and strong opinions. She won’t say how much she invested, but when Artsy opened for business in 2012, it had $50 million in venture capital. Last summer, amid soaring numbers, it raised another $50 million.
Which of the three hatched the idea for Artsy is a bit murky. Cleveland has his Princeton story; Murdoch has her own version. “Dasha and I had an idea to do this,” she says with a bright smile, referring to Dasha Zhukova, the former wife of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. “Together we raised money… I talked to leading galleries, brought them in as our supporters. Dasha did creative design. Carter and Sebastian built the Artsy platform. We all worked as a team.”
The company has also become a serious player in live auctions, working with all the major houses. In 2017 it held 190 of them—not fancy evening sales, but definitely day sales for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Between the galleries and the auction houses, Artsy says it is now facilitating sales worth more than $20 million a month, all told. Mid-level Artsy executives at the Basel Miami art fair told him Artsy was “close to profitability,” which meant it had lost money in its first four years.
In 2010, Murdoch brought in Joshua Kushner of Thrive Capital, who wrote a check for $1.25 million.
As of 2021, Wendi Deng’s net worth is estimated to be around $1.2 billion.
According to New York Magazine, Deng retained the couple’s US$44 million Fifth Avenue penthouse triplex and a house in Beijing.
The pair reportedly had a prenup before they married. "New York favors enforceability of prenup agreements, and unless Wendi is able to establish [she signed in] fraud or duress, it is likely to withstand a challenge."
Murdoch's net worth is $12.1bn, according to the Bloomberg billionaires list, where he ranked 77th wealthiest person in the world, and top divorce lawyers in the US believe the pre-nup will be the cast-iron framework for the division of the spoils. Rupert Murdoch is represented by Ivana Trump's divorce lawyer Ira Garr, of law firm Garr Silpe.
He has said the stock is owned by trusts that name his three children as beneficiaries. Deng has no equity in the company and no voting rights in the operation, which is controlled by the Murdoch family trust, who have 38.4% of the voting stock.
All of Rupert Murdoch’s six children are direct beneficiaries of the Murdoch Family Trust which makes around US$12 billion a year thanks to the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, according to Verdict UK in 2018. Murdoch's four adult children by second wife, Anna Torv – have maintained all the voting rights in the Murdoch Family Trust, which controls the 38.4% family voting shares.
The beneficiaries of the trust were extended to include the two youngest children as part of a restructuring which saw all six children get $100m class A non-voting shares in February 2007, with another $60m tranche in November that year. Deng's two children with Murdoch have an undisclosed amount of News Corp Class B voting shares and 8.73m class A non-voting shares according to filings in 2007, worth $276m at current prices. These are held in the GCM Trust, which is "administered by independent trustees" for the benefit of the "minor children" according to filings with US financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to The Financial Times, unlike their step-siblings, Chloe and Grace have no voting shares in the trust and have trustees to help manage their stakes. They’re set to inherit $2 billion each.
Deng and her daughters are securely among the megarich. Post-divorce Deng has a reported net worth of US$100 million, per Celebrity Net Worth.
Rub Elbows with:
Li Ning is arguably China's most famous athlete. Along with the American runner Carl Lewis, he was the star of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, winning three gold medals in gymnastics. Tall and good-looking, Li was a natural symbol of the new, modernizing China. He used his celebrity to develop a nation-wide chain of sports shops - something hitherto unheard of in communist China. He's now one of the country's richest people, and one of its most recognisable: an anything's-possible icon for the post-Mao generations. Wendi graduated in 1993 and spent the next year working almost full-time at Li Ning's gym. Working with Li Ning and his business partner, Chen Yihong, opened doors for Wendi Deng: both had pull in Beijing, for Chinese politicians.
A Star colleague describes her as "a delightful charmer", and very popular with the male expatriate staff, something which inevitably gave rise to rumors. "She loved that she worked for a big, multinational, non-Chinese company in China," recalls one colleague. "She was ambitious, sure, but not in the way that ‘I'm going to write a killer business plan myself and make it work and be recognised for making it work'; she was ambitious in the way that ‘I'm going to meet this person and schmooze this person.'" On Friday nights, she turned heads partying in Hong Kong's fashionable bar district with friends like Rebecca Li and a Briton, Sue Taylor, who also worked in the media. Another Yale graduate working at Star, Tiffany Soong, was a friend, and she was very close to a wealthy British fund manager, Scobie Ward.
Among the 82 wedding guests were Murdoch's three children and friends such as financier Michael Milken and Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Also on board was Valeria Wolf, the mother of David Wolf. Welsh singing star Charlotte Church, performed three ballads for the couple. Also in attendance were financier Michael Milken; and Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Jacqueline Silbermann, then a New York Supreme Court Justice, performed the ceremony. Deng’s cream-colored silk-and-lace gown was reportedly designed by Richard Tyler of Australia
Wendi worked with Chris DeWolfe, the founder of MySpace, which Murdoch bought for £400m in 2005 and sold for £25m in 2011. She and DeWolfe were the subject of persistent rumors that business was leaching into pleasure - DeWolfe has denied them.
In 2006, Murdoch and Deng attended Keith Urban's and Nicole Kidman's wedding at St. Patrick's College in Sydney, Australia.
In 2009, Murdoch co-founded Artsy[23] with Carter Cleveland[24] and Dasha Zhukova,[25] which has since become one of the top online places for buying, viewing and learning about art.[26][10][27] Other investors include Peter Thiel and François Pinault
2010 Baptism-
Wendi flew high. When the children were baptized in the River Jordan in 2010, their godparents included Tony Blair, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, all dressed in white for an occasion at which they were guests of Queen Rania - as was Ivanka Trump, whose product launches Wendi has attended. The nation’s Queen Rania proceeded to take Kidman, Jackman, the Murdochs and Ivanka Trump on a tour of the country’s best-known tourist sites after the ceremony. Pictures of the ceremony appeared in Hello! - but none included Blair. It was Fiona Golfar, writing for British Vogue, who revealed that Blair had indeed been there and was indeed a godparent - which he'd omitted to tell the world.
The Obamas
2010
When, at the last minute, one of the leading actresses dropped out of the Snow Flower film, Deng was a blur of energy. 'She hit the phones,' Wayne Wang, the director, told British Vogue. 'For her, "no" is not an option.' She swiftly signed up Li Bingbing.
2011 Media Moguls-
The art world is still all about contacts and she excels at that. One phone call and it's done. Wendi can open so many doors - especially with the growing importance of Asia.' She is, he adds, 'a rainmaker' - though one mainland Chinese source says 'it's not that Wendi's fallen from grace [after her divorce from Rupert Murdoch], but that she has lost some respect with the Chinese. She still has a great range of contacts and is obviously very well off, but people gave her more respect when she was married.' (The same source adds that Deng's looks are not the sort that Chinese men find particularly attractive.)
In November 2011, Artsy closed a round of financing from early investors: Jim Breyer, Chris Dixon, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Larry Gagosian, Joshua Kushner, Dave Morin, and Eric Schmidt then CEO of Google.
Wendi hung out with what she described as 'the Google guys', technopreneurs Larry Page and Sergey Brin - just as she did with Chris DeWolfe. Optimistic encounters with Tim Cook, the gay (but not then out) CEO of Apple.
Wendi was holidaying with Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova, a co-investor with Wendi in Artsy. “But this is the art world: It was all about ‘Who will I associate with? Who are the others on the platform?’” Kushner went on to lead Artsy’s $18.5 million series B round of funding.
Surprisingly, Deng has even been linked with Russian President Vladimir Putin. An insider told People magazine the relationship was “serious” at one point. Reports of the pair have been floating around for years, ever since their respective divorces in 2014 and 2013.
2014 rumors are catalyst for divorce-
Tony Blair, former prime minister of Britain, is also a godfather to Grace, per The Hollywood Reporter. Things may have got awkward in 2014 when Deng and Blair were caught up in largely unsubstantiated rumors of an alleged extramarital affair – denied by all parties.
Ivanka Trump
May 2015
Wendi Deng & Dasha Zhukova
June 2015 & very chummy Dec 2016
Wendi Deng & Karlie Kloss
June 2015
Just as Rupert Murdoch married his 3rd wife in March 2016, up popped Wendi, populating the front row at Paris Fashion Week, sitting next to Wintour at Fendi and telling the New York Times that 'I don't usually come to Paris for Fashion Week but I decided to this weekend. It's been such fun.' Also fun, no doubt, was linking arms in Paris with 30-year-old Charlie Siem, an Old Etonian classical violinist who's modeled for Dunhill and Hugo Boss. Arm candy, to be sure, and a reminder that she too could deal with younger models - Hall is 60 to Murdoch's 85
After Murdoch’s divorce from Deng, the billionaire married Jerry Hall, a long-time partner of rock legend Mick Jagger. That means Chloe and Grace added step-siblings Georgia May Jagger, Elizabeth Jagger, Gabriel Jagger and James Jagger to their growing family.
Wendi was also at that Met Gala in 2016, sitting with Wintour and Sir Jonathan Ive at the preview of the tech-themed event - and later wearing a laser-cut lace and embroidery Christopher Kane dress that she called 'really beautiful' to the ball itself. Diane von Furstenberg remains a close friend, as does Wintour - who, it's said, has suggested that Deng steer clear of the press for the time being.
The theme: Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology
The co-chairs: Jonathan Ive, Idris Elba, Anna Wintour and Taylor Swift
Honorary chairs: Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld and Miuccia Prada
Ivanka Trump
Aug 2016
“She’s very impressive,” Murdoch said of Ivanka Trump in the interview. “She has three children and she is teaching them Chinese. It’s very nice. We’ve been friendly for many years. I try to separate [the election] from that.” Trump has shared several photos of Murdoch on her Instagram account, including one of them traveling together in Croatia.
Karlie & Dasha Zhukova w/Wendi Deng
Sept 2016
Fashion maven Anna Wintour found Wendi just the right clothes; she wore Prada, Lanvin sandals, whatever was the season's fashion. She had tight, tight friendships with Bono, Naomi Campbell, Amy 'The Tiger Mom' Chua, self-help author Kathy Freston, Diane von Furstenberg, David Geffen, Arianna Huffington, Karlie Kloss, Pearl Lam, and Amy Tan.
Naomi Campbell
Derek Blasberg & Karlie & Dasha Zhukova posted by Wendi Deng
Gail King
2017
Wendi was spotted on several dates with 21-year-old Hungarian model Bertold Zahoran between 2017 and 2018.
Josh Kushner
Nov 2019
Wendi was last seen in public at the 2022 Met Gala donning a feathered pink gown and walking down the red carpet solo.
Jeff Bezos & Lauren Sánchez Engagement Party
Nov 2023
The venue? Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg’s Beverly Hills home.
Guests: Elsa Marie Collins, Veronica Grazer, Kris Jenner dressed in Chanel, posed for pictures, there was a performance from Jewel, Miranda Kerr, Robert Pattinson, Salma Hayek Pinault, Sarah Staudinger, Barbra Streisand, Suki Waterhouse, Oprah Winfrey.
Martha Stewart & Kimbal Musk
2024
June 2024
Following Rupert Murdoch’s brief and disastrous engagement to a one-time San Francisco socialite who reportedly favored pro-QAnon-style politics, the Fox News mogul decided to take the advice of someone close to him when choosing wife no. 5. Murdoch, 93, let Wendi Deng, his third wife, play matchmaker and set him up with Elena Zhukova, 67, as the Daily Mail reported.
Zhukova is a Russian-born retired molecular biologist at UCLA, but she is less known for her scientific accomplishments than for her ties to the jet-set, high-society world. The bride-to-be is the mother of Daria Zhukova, who was once married to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and is now married to Stavros Niarcho. She keeps close ties in both LA and New York and is very close friends with Wendi (along with Karlie Kloss, Jennifer Meyer, Derek Blasberg etc). Elena Zhukova also was once married to the Russian-born billionaire Alexander Zhukov. Dasha Zhukova, in turn, is known for enjoying close friendships with Deng, as well as with Ivanka Trump and Karlie Kloss. This circle is utterly fascinating. It’s so insular! I guess there are not that many single male billionaires in the world.
Murdoch and Elena Zhukova married Saturday at Moraga, the mogul’s Los Angeles-area vineyard and estate. The Daily Mail reported that Deng was in attendance, along with several other “high-powered” people, including New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and News Corp chief executive Robert Thompson.
A Star colleague recalls the time when the relationship went public. Wendi "wanted to talk about all the famous people she'd met. There was a certain amount of boastful-ness to it, but she wasn't really dropping names; she was genuinely starstruck, in a guileless way. The whole thing was very weird." In a similar vein, a News executive remembers that not long after he and his wife met Wendi, she would call them for tips on what to wear to functions she was attending with Rupert. "It was quite sweet, actually. She wasn't showing off; she was genuinely unsure of what was appropriate," he says. Kathy Freston says she's in contact with Wendi at least once a day as they shuttle between their respective homes in Los Angeles and New York. They share yoga teachers, and Kathy is trying to teach Wendi to meditate. I adore her because she is very thoughtful and quirky and brilliant in a completely original and unpretentious way. She has no interest in knowing the right people - she likes who she likes, no matter what station in life they occupy. She doesn't put on false airs."
Troubles/(Alleged) Crimes:
Scheming [my word] to get to the U.S.-
Jake Cherry, then 50, was working in Guangzhou, helping the Chinese to build a factory to make freezers for food-processing plants. The Cherrys' interpreter told them of a young woman who was looking for help with her English. Joyce Cherry, then 42, says she began tutoring the teenager. In late 1987, Joyce returned to Los Angeles to enroll her two children in elementary school. Jake stayed in China to finish the factory project.
Soon after Joyce was resettled in Los Angeles, she says, her husband called to say that Deng wanted to come to the US to study. He asked his wife to help complete the paperwork and get an application ready for a local college. The Cherrys sponsored Deng's bid for a student visa and agreed to put her up until she had established herself. The 19-year-old arrived at the Cherry home in February 1988. She shared a bedroom and bunk bed with her hosts' five-year-old daughter.
Wendi worked in a Chinese restaurant, as an Avon salesperson and at an accounting firm. All was not well, however, between the elder Cherrys–they agree that being separated had strained the marriage. At the same time, Joyce says she had grown increasingly suspicious about Deng's relationship with her husband. Joyce recalls discovering a cache of photographs her husband (30 years Deng’s senior) had taken of Deng in coquettish poses back in his hotel room in Guangzhou.
Jake confirms that he had become infatuated with the young woman. Once they were in Los Angeles, he says, Deng started making recommendations about his diet and wardrobe. When her husband and Deng did not return home some evenings, Joyce says she concluded they were having an affair. She told Deng to leave, and Jake departed soon after. He moved into a nearby apartment with Deng, who had enrolled at California State University at Northridge, a commuter college in the San Fernando Valley.
The Cherrys divorced, and Jake married Deng in February 1990, Deng got a green card, and the pair split four months later, though they stayed married on paper for two years and seven months, according to New York Magazine. Jake (53 at the time) says that about four months after the wedding, he told Deng to leave because she had started spending time with a man named David Wolf, who was in his mid-20s and even taller than her - she's five-foot-10. Divorce records filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court show that the Cherry-Deng marriage lasted two years and seven months. That was seven months longer than what was required for Deng to obtain a "green card", allowing her permanently to live and work in the US as a resident alien. When an interviewer from UK Vogue asked Deng to confirm if they’d got this version of events right, the billionaire’s ex-wife simply replied, “Yep.”
Jake later said he and Deng actually lived together for "four to five months, at the most" when he learned that Deng was spending time with David Wolf. For his part, Jake Cherry told the WSJ: 'She told me I was a father concept to her, but it would never be anything else. I loved that girl.' He's not the first man to have regretted a midlife crisis.
During the period in the early 1990s when she was married to Jake Cherry, and for a time after that, Deng at least on some occasions introduced the tall, well-dressed Wolf as her husband, according to people who knew her. Ken Chapman, a California State economics professor, recalls that the last time he saw his former student, in 1995, she handed him Wolf's business card and said she could be reached through her "husband". Deng used Wolf's money to study at Yale.
Networking Instead of Working-
But there were times when Wendi did need some paperwork for important meetings. Sometimes she'd write her own and sometimes, one executive recalls, she would schmooze work from her colleagues, playing the role of the unworldly mainlander making her way. "She took advantage of people's naiveté and niceness," the executive says. "And she totally got credit for it. She presents this stuff to the bosses, and her charming self, and then she starts jetting off.
If Rupert fell in love with her because of her Excel-spreadsheet business plans, then he should've married me." Still, the Star executive harbors little malice towards her former colleague. "Was it wilful? Maybe. Does it matter? I've experienced worse. Some of us were a bit pissed off at the time, but we were all a team - at least, that's what we thought. I'm not trashing her ... I was very fond of her. I still am," the executive says, "but Star was no meritocracy. There's a certain amount of guileless guile about her ... she'll set her mind on something, and the way she'll go after it is with a sledgehammer. She's not a genius; she's a sweetheart, she's a party girl, she loves it when everyone is having fun - she likes to facilitate that. That's what she does."
Taking Charge of Murdoch Media in China-
Shortly after he married Wendi Deng in 1999, Rupert Murdoch said in an interview that his new wife's job was "as a home decorator": that she was not "some business genius about to take over News". Coworkers report Wendi doesn’t have that feared clout. If Wendi is known in China, it is as the Mandarin-speaking wife of a powerful Western businessman who acts as his quasi-ambassador, handing around a business card that says simply "Wendi Deng Murdoch, News Corporation" and assuming that the Communist Party heavies whom her husband needs to get onside will recognise the surname. But even if they do, there's no certainty that they will be much help. Wendi, he says, has been openly disparaged by Chinese officials in front of her husband, with the non-Mandarin-speaking Rupert not under-standing their harsh comments. One Chinese business man relates his wife’s opinion of Wendi- "She thinks of her as you xinji," he says, a pointed, slightly pejorative Chinese phrase which translates as "having a calculating heart". Murdoch has power in the West largely because he operates in democracies which allow him influence; China is a rigid one-party state with little room for a Western media mogul used to having political clout.
Mean/Abusive to Staff-
In 2012, a former nanny to the Murdoch household spoke to Gawker about her alleged year-long “war zone” experience working for the family. Hsu Ying-shu said that staff members included two secretaries, one cook, two housekeepers, a nanny, a tutor and one part-time laundry person. She said “everyone who works for [Wendi] hates her and is scared of her”. Hsu called Rupert “calm” and a “gentleman” in comparison.
Deng was given to profanity-laced outbursts for seemingly minor affronts, Hsu said, often in front of her daughters. "She had a very bad temper and would get angry very easily. Once, when we were leaving the house, I forgot to bring a hair clip for one of the girls, and Wendi yelled at me. So I ran back into the house to get it, but I got the wrong one. Wendi threw it on the ground in front of the girls and everyone."
Hsu could recall the time she kicked an intransigent nanny out of her chauffeur-driven car. "One of the nannies made a mistake in the car, and Wendi told the chauffeur to stop the car and told the nanny to get out and then drove off. She has a hot temper." Hsu, who couldn't recall the nature of the nanny's grievous error
Deng's outbursts weren't reserved for the staff; Hsu said she also was constantly haranguing her husband in front of the help. "Murdoch… appreciated us at the end of the night. But she also curses Rupert all the time. A lot of F-words. She's always yelling, crying. Murdoch is the calm type."
Another example of Deng's cheapness: When Chloe, the younger daughter, wanted the nanny’s lunch, Deng would give it to her without getting Hsu another one. Meanwhile, Hsu claims that Deng told then-10-year-old Grace to be “skinny like a movie star”.
Labor/Tax Violations-
Deng, Hsu says, was notorious among her household staff for being cheap, despite her husband's fortune:
Food in the refrigerator, Hsu said, was strictly labeled for Rupert and the kids and was hands off for the staff.
Hsu's hours were supposed to be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., but Deng frequently asked her to work later, especially when the family was traveling, and never paid her overtime.
Her job included no benefits, paid vacation, or sick leave—perks that are routinely afforded to nannies in New York (and are now mandatory under a recently passed Domestic Workers Bill of Rights).
When the Murdochs were away and Hsu wasn't traveling with them, she didn't get paid.
Though Hsu's nominal salary at $3,000 per month totaled $36,000 per year, with unpaid vacations and time off when the Murdochs traveled without her, she ended up earning just $26,200 in 2005.
For perspective, according to a 2011 survey of nanny employment practices in Brooklyn conducted by Park Slope Parents, 8 in 10 families reported continuing to pay their nanny for regular hours while they were away.
And the average Brooklyn nanny received more than 11 paid days off per year.
What's more, the Murdochs' household corporation, KRM Services (as in Keith Rupert Murdoch), classified Hsu as a self-employed independent contractor despite the fact that she was clearly a household employee.
According to tax documents disclosed in Hsu's lawsuit against the Murdochs, KRM Services treated Hsu as a 1099 employee and didn't withhold any taxes or pay the employer's share of her Social Security taxes in 2005.
IRS guidelines make it abundantly clear that if "you can control not only what work is done" by an employee "but how it is done," then that staffer qualifies as a household employee for whom employment taxes must be paid.
There is no question based on Hsu's description of her job that Deng had total control over what she did and how she did it.
Indeed, during the course of Hsu's litigation, Deng filed a sworn declaration with the court affirming that she controlled the "time, manner, and place of where Ying-Shu Hsu performed her work
In March 2007, the Board wrote to KRM Services that there was "no record that you have complied with Section 50 of the Workers' Compensation Law, which provides that you must carry workers' compensation insurance for your employees."
KRM responded that it had indeed purchased insurance—but in March 2007, more than a year after the accident.
The Board found that the Murdochs couldn't prove that they had purchased insurance for Hsu that was in effect on January 9, 2006.
So she got nothing.
In December 2007, Hsu and her husband filed a complaint for unspecified damages against KRM Services, Murdoch, and Deng in Queens County Supreme Court, claiming negligence.
The litigation dragged on for years, during which time attorneys for the Murdochs repeatedly claimed, and repeatedly failed to prove to the satisfaction of the court and the Workers' Compensation Board, that it had, indeed, purchased insurance for Hsu.
All the while, Hsu—whom everybody agreed should have been entitled to some compensation during her long rehabilitation—got nothing beyond her ad hoc severance from Deng.
Finally—and, to Hsu, suspiciously—in January of last year, the Murdochs presented "previously unavailable evidence" establishing that they had, after all, had their insurance in order.
Instead of acknowledging a paperwork error with their insurance and settling the case for the cost of a few of their frequent private jet flights, the Murdochs used every delay tactic at their disposal to draw out the case.
Almost sadistically, the Murdochs then began demanding that Hsu pay their court costs for the four years of litigation, an astronomical expense that would have bankrupted her.
This despite the fact that the lawsuit dragged on that long because of the Murdochs' failure to properly document their coverage.
In March of last year, the complaint was finally dismissed by the judge, who rejected the Murdochs demand for costs.
Through it all, Hsu got nothing aside from a total of $8,000—roughly two-and-a-half months salary—in severance from Deng.
Five years after the accident, she walks with a limp.
Throughout her long rehabilitation, during which she was severely impaired and in pain, she got none of the workers' compensation benefits to which she was entitled.
By the time evidence of her coverage emerged four years later, she had recovered to the point where a doctor no longer found her to be impaired enough for benefits.
She moved to Las Vegas, gave up on pursuing anything from workers' compensation, and lives off her Social Security benefits.
Poacher-
[I can’t research this further for my own mental health]
Wendy Deng has a board membership at a wildlife conservation charity alongside a CEO
who apparently saw no contradiction in trophy hunting leopards and elephants.
Allegations of espionage, which she has vehemently denied-
Rupert Murdoch was the guest of honor of Hong Kong's Chief Executive designate at the official handover ceremony on 30 June 1997. A bastion of colonial privilege, the club was an unusual place for a mainlander - and the daughter of a Communist Party member, no less - to witness the act that Beijing believed would rectify an accident of history. But the historical significance of the moment didn't much move her, it seems: "Wendi doesn't have those type of views; she's not at all political," says a friend. "She's the type of person who'll go to a party and she'll come back and tell you who she met and what they said. She's not fixing rockets in her spare time; she's not dumb either ... she's got other gifts."
Tony Blair-
According to a source quoted in the Journal’s article, when reports emerged that she may have been linked with Tony Blair while she was married, British security officials discussed with their US counterparts whether they should be concerned. Murdoch and Blair have denied they were ever romantically connected. The Journal’s story is particularly striking because the newspaper is owned by News Corp, whose executive chairman is Murdoch’s ex-husband Rupert Murdoch. In fact, Michael Wolff, the author of a new book on Donald Trump’s presidency and a biography about Rupert Murdoch, claimed on Twitter after the Journal article was published that the media tycoon had been claiming his ex-wife was a Chinese spy to “anybody who would listen” since their divorce.
Ivanka Trump-
In 2017, Deng found herself in headlines once again when she was suspected of being a spy by US counter-intelligence officials who had reportedly warned Jared Kushner she could be helping the Chinese government. It’s public knowledge that Deng is friends with Kushner and Ivanka Trump – she even reportedly played a role in their getting back together after a split.
In early 2018, The Wall Street Journal published a story suggesting that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump,[51] longtime friends of Murdoch, were warned by US intelligence agencies that Wendi may be using her relationship with them to further the goals of the Chinese government.[52] US officials were concerned Deng was lobbying to push a major Chinese-funded construction project in Washington DC. In particular a $100 million Chinese garden at the National Arboretum. The design included a 70-foot tower that was reportedly declared a national security risk because it was to be built less than five miles from both the Capitol and the White House, and could conceivably have been used for surveillance.
Wendi’s spokesman said she “has no knowledge of any FBI concerns or other intelligence agency concerns relating to her or her associations”. He also said she “has absolutely no knowledge of any garden projects funded by the Chinese government” and observes that she has not been accused of anything.
Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, posited that the article was an attempt by Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Wall Street Journal, to spread the idea that "Wendi is a Chinese spy" in the aftermath of their acrimonious divorce.[53]
Three weeks after the media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, married Jerry Hall, Wendi was spotted holidaying in the Caribbean on a Russian yacht— one even better than the Dynasty. She was seen boarding her pal billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich‘s yacht in St. Bart’s on Monday, March 28. It is the Chelsea owner’s yacht, not to be confused with the £25m or $35 million yacht that the Daily Mail reported he gifted President Putin in January. Wendi has yet to be spotted looking romantic with the Russian leader, but despite no official comments/gossip on the relationship, untried intelligence suggests she and the Russian president are now an item.
But what would be best of all would be for Wendi - as waggish conspiracy theorists have long mooted - to turn out to have been a 'sleeper' for the Chinese Communist Party all along, moving ever closer to the levers of power: Cherry, Murdoch, Blair, now Putin... World domination beckons.
Amerlierations:
Copies of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post are piled high inside the entrance of the Shuang Wen High School, on New York's Lower East Side. The papers are part of a $500,000 donation Wendi made to the school which sits on Cherry Street, in a tough neighborhood adjacent to Chinatown. It has one of the state-school system's most impressive academic records, and is popular with uptown New York families who want to give their children a way into China's economic future.
She's also a trustee of, and a donor to, the Asia Society, located just a few blocks away from her uptown home. The society is a major networking spot, where the grandees of America's Asian establishment gather to debate policy.
Wendi backed a bevy of tech companies in China and the US including:
23andMe
Alibaba
Artsy
Bytedance
Diamond Foundry
Meituan
Oscar
Snapchat
Tencent
Uber
VIPKID
Xiaomi
Warby Parker
Zoox
She gave $2,000to Chuck Schumer in 2003
Wendi donated another $2,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2009
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s list of first quarter-donors is Wendi Murdoch, who contributed $2,500 dollars toward Gillibrand’s re-election on Feb. 29.
Murdoch and Gillibrand occupy some common ground on women’s issues, which Gillibrand has made central to her agenda and political identity.
Murdoch has tried to raise awareness on maternal mortality and education for women in the developing world, and Gillibrand sponsored a bill in 2010 to promote access to education in developing countries.
But the vast majority of her donations are to conservative senators like
Mitch McConnell
John Thune
Ted Stevens
along with a few congressional candidates
and the presidential campaigns of
George W. Bush
John McCain.
Sources:
https://www.afr.com/politics/the-rise-and-rise-of-wendi-deng-20001103-k9u1b
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-wendi-deng-and-rupert-murdoch-met-2013-6
https://facts.net/celebrity/16-surprising-facts-about-wendi-deng/
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jun/14/rupert-murdoch-divorce-money-wendi-deng
https://www.tatler.com/gallery/the-truth-about-wendi-deng-vladimir-putin
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/rupert-murdoch-wives-lovers-relationships-divorce-b1068891.html
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a18929591/wendi-murdoch-interview-artsy/
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alisonwillmore/area-of-expertise-wendi-deng-murdoch
https://www.justjared.com/2015/05/04/gong-li-wendi-murdoch-are-gorgeous-met-gala-2015-co-chairs/
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/lauren-sanchez-jeff-bezos-engagement-party-2023
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