PRD VIP is a monthly snippet where we introduce a person of Guangdong heritage who has made an impact on the world stage.
Wendi Deng is a real newsmaker. Rumors and stories about her can amuse one for an entire day, including the nature of her relationships with Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin, not to mention the falsification of her profile on Wikipedia.
She also made headlines back in 2011 when she counterattacked an intruder who tried to throw a cream pie at her then husband, chairman of the News Corporation Rupert Murdoch, during a hearing on phone hacking. “The speed of her reactions left even a police officer trailing as he ambled over to sort out the melee,” the New York Times drolly reported. A Labour Member of Parliament was said to have added, “Mr. Murdoch, your wife has a very good left hook.”
Perhaps Deng picked up her very good left hook during her childhood. Born Deng Wenge (‘wenge’ literally means ‘cultural revolution’) in Jinan City of Shandong Province to Deng Dehui, a factory director from Dongguan, Deng changed her name to Wendi when she went to college in Guangzhou at the age of 17.
In the 1990s, Deng studied economics at the California State University and later received an MBA from Yale in 1996, after which she worked for Star TV in Hong Kong. Then she met Rupert Murdoch. Some say Deng introduced herself to Murdoch at a party where she wasn’t invited; others insinuate the couple’s two girls were born out of intrauterine insemination so that she could lay the claim to the media tycoon’s money.
Regardless of rumors, Deng kissed Murdoch goodbye in 2013 and is apparently now romancing a British violinist.
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