With strong swipe, Murdoch's wife lunges into global spotlight
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This combination picture shows Wendi Deng (in pink) lunging toward a man trying to attack her husband, News Corp Chief Executive and Chairman Rupert Murdoch, during a parliamentary committee hearing on phone hacking at Portcullis House in London on Tuesday. Parbul TV Via Reuters |
NEW YORK - With a tiger-like swipe at a protester, Wendi Deng became an unlikely hero in defense of her octogenarian husband Rupert Murdoch.
The 42-year-old third Mrs Murdoch, who came from middle-class China to marry one of the world's most powerful media moguls, gave a dramatic stand-by-your-man display.
The Yale University business school graduate, yoga devotee and former News Corp employee reacted faster than anyone else seated around Murdoch, including his son James, when the tense questioning by a British parliamentary panel was interrupted by a man throwing a shaving-cream pie at her 80-year-old husband.
She sprang from her seat behind her husband to smack the assailant, in a scene witnessed by millions around the world watching television coverage on Tuesday of the latest developments in the News of the World telephone hacking scandal.
In doing so, Deng made the embattled News Corp chief look vulnerable, and herself strong. But the incident and her reaction also helped to take some of the heat off of Murdoch who had looked tired, disconnected and irritable earlier in the hearing.
"That's our Wendi," said Vanity Fair writer Michael Wolff, author of a Murdoch biography. "She is great - incredibly full of energy, incredibly intelligent, living the life and just squeezing everything out of it," he said. "She is incredibly ambitious."
China's enthusiastic microbloggers made the incident one of the most popular topics on the country's Twitter-like service Weibo.
Her actions have even generated a new online nickname for her in China - "Smack down sister".
"Her reactions were super-fast! She walks away as the only hero," wrote Zhang Xin.
"When you marry, you should marry a Chinese woman. In times of danger, she will act," added Loulan Loulan.
Deng however has not taken to her own Weibo account to talk about what she did.
With 124,131 followers, her Weibo site is full of pictures of her with celebrities, such as Australian actors Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and references to her "hubby". The daughter of a factory director in Guangzhou, China, Deng joined News Corp's Star TV as an intern in 1996, shortly after getting an MBA from Yale.
Reuters
(China Daily 07/21/2011 page12)
