Several months ago, we heard a completely bizarre rumor. Ruper Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng was allegedly “dating” Vladimir Putin. At the time, I mentioned the long-standing rumors that Deng has a reputation of choosing lovers and husbands for how much power, money and access they have. Reportedly, Rupert Murdoch divorced Wendi because he believed she was fooling around on him with Tony Blair. So, Putin was within the realm of possibility, perhaps. Well, now Wendi has a fascinating new interview in Vogue where she discusses her post-divorce dating life, how she’s not dating Putin and more. You can read the full piece here (it’s ridiculously ass-kissy, even by Vogue standards). Some highlights:
She hosts a lot of dinner parties for important people: “Put people together and things can happen.”
Clinton vs. Trump: “I’m careful. I’m Switzerland.”
She’s always worked: “I never really quit work. I don’t think I ever considered myself just a rich wife. When E-Trade first started, I was at home moving stocks around.”
She’s also a matchmaker: Recent success stories: Anne Wojcicki, the tech entrepreneur and ex-wife of Sergey Brin, and the baseball player Alex Rodriguez; Xin Li, the model turned Christie’s power broker, and the music mogul Lyor Cohen; Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
She never brags about herself? “I love people. I’m so curious. Artists, entrepreneurs—I’m fascinated by their ideas.” Murdoch never boasts about herself (the closest she came with me was when she acknowledged being excellent at math), but she is eager to tell you who in her wide circle of friends has won an Oscar, gained a billion-dollar valuation, had a record sale at Sotheby’s, watched a daughter graduate from Princeton. Murdoch is heat-seeking. Success is her drug.
She meditates with “her old friend Deborra-Lee Furness (wife of the actor Hugh Jackman)”: “I could worry about what people say all day long, but it’s not a very productive way of using my energy. If you ask my friends, they’ll tell you that I don’t complain very much.”
She & Murdoch co-parent their daughters: “Rupert’s a very good father. Strict like me. We attend school conferences together. We both make sure they learn Chinese, do well in math. We make decisions together about how they use social media. We never want them to say, ‘Well, Mommy said this’ or ‘Daddy said that.’ ”
She won’t comment on the Tony Blair rumor: Friends say that a Vanity Fair article that cast Wendi as ruthlessly ambitious was crushing for her, and that its central allegation—that she had had an affair with former British prime minister Tony Blair—is untrue.
On Jerry Hall, Murdoch’s new wife: “I’ve met Jerry only briefly once, when she dropped off Grace. She seems very nice, and my girls like her. I always tell them to treat her kindly. She’s their father’s wife.”
The rumors about her romance with Putin: It was, if nothing else, a sort of wish fulfillment for those who over the years have cast Murdoch as a fearless hunter of big game. Untrue, alas. “I’ve never met Putin,” she says. “But wow, so much press about it. Why did they choose me?” Perhaps the press chose Murdoch out of a perverse sense of respect, a certainty that she could hold her own with the best (and the worst) of them. As it happens, Murdoch is single and happy to be fixed up. The gossip columns aren’t always wrong; it turns out that the handsome and much younger British violinist photographed next to her at the Giambattista Valli show in Paris in March was indeed a date. “Why not?” she asks. “Am I supposed to be shy?”
If you ever want to get dizzy from a full-blitz name-dropping and humble-brag session, I would definitely suggest you read the full Vogue piece. It feels like Wendi Deng is ONLY friends with celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEOs and artists. If you don’t have any money, you are not invited to her dinner parties. And I find it hard to believe that Vogue is trying to sell this “Wendi never brags about herself” narrative when all she does is feign humility a few times and then gets her famous friends to brag about how she’s the most amazing person in the world.
As for the rumors about Putin and Blair… I’ll believe that she’s never banged Putin. But I do think she and Blair were hittin’ it.
Photos courtesy of Norman Jean Roy/Vogue and WENN.
Humble brag piece was been kind, this lady name drops like I’ve never seen before. It’s good that she claims rupert and herself co parent in harmony and she wants the girls to treat Jerry well. I’ve always been fasniated by wendi and the Murdoch family, so I tend to read any articles that come up. She is portrayed as a scheming but very intelligent women. Hugh jackmans wife if good friends with her and Debra lee is lovely sooo I just can’t make my mind up over wendi.
From what I’ve read and heard, she comes across a first class hustler and scheming artist. But an intelligent opportunist who knows what she wanted and is fiercely determined. I mean, all the men she met on the way might have given her the leg up but she seized the opportunities like no one else. Although, I do think she wears the facade of nicety very well for the people she considered useful and behaves entirely different in private.
I agree 100%
I don’t see her as an opportunist per se. An opportunist needs luck in some way to make their way and when luck works in their davour, they take it.
Wendi sets goals and then finds what she needs to achieve said goals irrespective of her personal views or preferences eg her membership of the basketball team is a very clear example here. She states very clearly in the article that she only joined the team because it provided free clothing and food. There is no pontification about sporting prowess or even love of the game.
Her need for a USA visa worked the same way. Find a couple that can help in that respect, persuade them to help. Once in the USA, she needed a green card. Therefore, seduced the husband away from his wife and divorced him as soon as she obtained the card.
From there, wanted a business degree from a prestigious university without personally coming from money, she fihured out how to attend on scholarship.
Etc and so forth until today.
She’s far more calculating than a mere opportunist.
She’s an opportunist all right. I think Vanity Fair had an article on her. She came to the US via a student visa. She met an American couple who agreed to sponsor her. When she arrived, she took up with the sponsor’s husband. He divorced his wife and paid for her education. I think there were a couple more broken relationships before she met Rupert (he left his wife for her too).
So if you call sleeping your way up to the top “determined” I guess it is.
What does she do, exactly? Besides not brag?
It’s nice that she a Rupert have a good relationship.
She worked and met Rupert at star TV and left pretty much straight left after meeting rupert. I think all she does these days is charities and sits boards.
Wendi is very intelligent and driven. She graduated from Yale and worked hard to get where she was. But how she got over to America and scored her visa involved a bit of a scandal. She met a family who took a liking to her and helped her come to America. She was sleeping in their daughters room. Anyway she broke up their marriage and married the father/husband and then divorced him after securing her green card.
Ew.
Whoa.
Yeah, I read up on her awhile back when she was still married to Murdoch and kind of had a moment where I went, “Welp, if two people ever deserved each other…”
(Although, I do think the husband got exactly what he deserved there.)
Wow. I am speechless.
Yup that’s the story. It’s plastered all over Vanity Fair when her marriage to Rupert exploded. They did an expose on her and I remembered this. The sponsor hubby wasn’t the only one. There was another sucker between sponsor hubby and Rupert.
Apparently she’s busy “meditating”…which for her is just another name to drop. I can’t abide this yoga trend which is so disingenuous with socialite types. She needs to own her ruthless inner 80s b@tch and stop confusing my circuits with those hippy pants.
Rumours aside regarding who she is or is not dating. Wendi comes across as a loyal friend.
Have you seen Alina Kabayeva? She’s hot. Like really really hotter than Mila Kunis hot.
I don’t think Putin would go for an Asian woman. He’s all about mother Russia. He’d sleep with her for the novelty of it. But he wouldn’t date her publicly.
Kabaeva and her mother used to be very loud about her relationships with Putler, but his people shut it down very quickly. Now she’s very low-key.
By the way, his daughters are married with dutch and Korean citizens.
Basically we don’t know anything about his taste and style. So this Wendy Deng can be one of those girls.
I thought Ekaterina was married to a Russian, Kirill Shamalov, not a Korean citizen.
I looked it up. Ekaterina was going to marry her long-time Korean boyfriend, but I guess that fell through (around 2010). She married Kirill Shamalov in 2013. Putin probably preferred that.
She is reportedly still friends with both Tony and Cherie Blair. I always assumed the whole Chinese mistress/spy/femme fetale thing was just smearing probably from the Murdoch side (his sons possibly). I think she is a socialite type in the old fashioned sense; she connects wealthy people together for business and occasionally matchmaking.
I have a feeling this woman can work any ‘smearing’ to her advantage. It gives her publicity and room to maneuver and change narratives. She is just like all the people you read on CB site except less thirsty looking. I guess, wouldn’t be good to be seen so desperate and try hard in the circle she’s traveling.
I find wendi Deng Murdock fascinating. Someone asks if she works. I’m sure her investments make her way more than the average person, and for profit companies pay their board of directors, I believe. It sounds like she is sometimes a paid consultant to, from the article. The Tony Blair thing was odd, if nothing else she had a huge crush on him, but that doesn’t mean anything happened.
Me too, is incredible how this lady has hustled in life… Though I do believe she porked Tony Blair!
She has always dated only rich men.A lawyer she once dated nicknamed her Bendy Wendy (if you know what I mean)……
You ever feel like someone’s just saying what they know they’re supposed to say?
Yep.
Since reading this article about their poor nanny – Deng is despicable
http://gawker.com/5926705/it-was-like-a-war-zone-a-former-nanny-for-rupert-murdoch-and-wendi-deng-speaks-out
This kiss assy piece by Vogue was bought and paid for by Wendi Deng. She is a huge financial contributor to the Met Gala event. Anna Wintour continues to be a major sell out.
Wendi Deng is a legend. seriously, she elevates hoeing to an art form. I have nothing but respect for her – I don’t even care about the marriages she’s broken up.
Wendi: teach me your ways!!
I feel some Paltrow vibes from her.