Murdoch's third marriage heads for divorce

World

Media Mogul -  Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife Wendi Deng, the company confirmed, just days before his media empire - News Corp. itself splits into two companies, one for its entertainment assets and the other for its publishing business.

A spokesman for Murdoch said the marriage had been irretrievably broken for more than six months.

The 82-year-old News Corp. Chief Executive runs one of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world - one that includes 20th Century Fox, Fox Television (including Fox News and FX), Sky News Service, HarperCollins publishing and many newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, The Times and several publications in his native Australia.

Wendi Deng, 44, the daughter of a factory director in Guangzhou, China, came to the United States in 1988 after serving as an interpreter for a Los Angeles couple working in China. Before she met Murdoch, she married the man who had sponsored her student visa in the United States during the late 1980s. She secured a "Green Card" to stay permanently in the United States - but her first marriage proved brief.

Murdoch and Deng met at a Hong Kong cocktail party shortly after her graduation from Yale where she obtained a MBA. In 1996, Deng started work as an Intern at Star TV, a Hong Kong-based satellite television service under Murdoch's corporate umbrella. She acted as Murdock's interpreter during a business trip to China.

They got married in 1999 after Murdoch's second marriage to Anna Torv Murdoch - his wife of 31 years, ended in a divorce.

Murdoch and Deng have two young daughters, Grace and Chloe. Murdoch has four grown children, Prudence from his first marriage and Lachlan, James and Elisabeth from his second.

A few years ago, several news reports said that Deng had battled Murdoch's adult children to secure a voting position for her children in the family trust, which holds the Murdoch stake in News Corp., worth billions of dollars.

As it now stands, the two youngest girls do not have voting rights in the trust, though they do have an ownership stake.

To many, Deng is best known for a July 2011 incident in the British Parliament, where Rupert Murdoch was testifying about a phone-hacking scandal. Comedian Jonnie Marbles came at Murdoch with a shaving-foam pie while Deng who was sitting behind her husband leapt into action, lunging at Marbles and smashing his hand with her own.