With a net worth of $11.2 billion, Rupert Murdoch’s divorce from Wendi Deng could be the most expensive ever.
Rupert Murdoch was married three times and his split from second wife, of 32 years, Anna Murdoch, in 1999, is currently the world’s biggest.
Anna Murdoch received $1.7 billion of his assets – including $110 million in cash, according to ABC news.
The second most expensive divorce was in 2008, when Formula One tycoon Bernie Ecclestone settled with Slavica for $1.2 billion.
Australia-born Rupert Murdoch took residence in the U.S. in 1974 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1985, based in New York City.
Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng filed for their divorce at the New York State Supreme Court this morning. It is not clear which of them will move out of their Upper East Side apartment.
As well as New York being their main residence, Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng may have filed their petition in the city because it’s “a place where prenups are generally given a significant amount of presumptive validity by the courts”, Bernard Clair, an established Manhattan divorce lawyer not involved in the Murdoch case, told NBC.
The issue of such validity would arise if the agreement was challenged in court.
With a net worth of $11.2 billion, Rupert Murdoch’s divorce from Wendi Deng could be the most expensive ever
Entering into a prenup has long been an option in the U.S. and all states recognize premarital agreements through statutes or court decisions.
Such agreements have only recently become legally enforceable in Australia, since 2000; and prenups first became legally recognized in Britain in 2010.
A pre-nuptial agreement is a contract entered into before marriage which specifies property and financial distribution in the event that the marriage terminates.
In the case of the Murdochs, the education and upbringing of the children born to the couple will also be an issue, as they have two daughters together – Grace, 11 and Chloe, 9.
Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng had a pre-nup agreement and have held shares in trust for their children, so the divorce is unlikely to lessen the media mogul’s grip on his media empire.
Under the property distribution laws in many states, a spouse who brings a large amount of cash, property, and other financial holdings to a marriage and makes them part of the marital estate may lose much of that property to the other spouse upon divorce.
Therefore, a spouse who brings substantially more money or property to a marriage may want a premarital agreement to protect some or all of those assets if the marriage fails.
Rupert Murdoch’s marriage to his first wife, Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne, lasted from 1956 to 1967.
They had one daughter, Prudence, in 1958. It is not clear what settlement they reached.
Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from Wendi Deng because their marriage has “irretrievably broken down”, his spokesman announced today.
The divorce papers were filed at the New York State Supreme Court.
The News Corp boss and Wendi Deng, married in 1999 aboard a private yacht in New York, have two daughters together, Grace and Chloe.
In 2011, Wendi Deng famously leapt to her husband’s defense to slap a protester who threw a pie at him as British MPs quizzed him over phone-hacking.
Rupert Murdoch, 82, met his Chinese-born third wife in 1997 at a cocktail party in Hong Kong. They were married two years later, weeks after his second divorce.
Wendi Deng, 44, is 38 years younger than the Australian-born media mogul, who is said by Forbes to be worth $9.4 billion.
“I can confirm for the record that Rupert filed in New York State Supreme Court this morning for divorce,” Rupert Murdoch spokesman Steven Rubenstein told AFP news agency on Thursday.
The couple had a pre-nuptial agreement and have held shares in trust for their children.
Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from Wendi Deng because their marriage has irretrievably broken down
So our business editor believes the divorce is not likely to lessen the magnate’s grip on his media empire.
Rupert Murdoch, now a US citizen, reportedly paid $1.7 billion in his divorce settlement from his last wife.
Wendi Deng, said to be the daughter of a factory director, was born in 1968 and grew up in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou before leaving for the US at 19 to study.
She worked in a Chinese restaurant in California before going on to graduate from Yale University in 1996.
Wendi Deng was later employed by Star TV, News Corp’s Asian satellite-television operation in Hong Kong, where she met Rupert Murdoch during one of his visits.
The divorce filing comes two days before News Corp is to be split into two companies, one for its entertainment assets and the other for its publishing business. Rupert Murdoch is to be chairman of both firms.
His global media portfolio includes the Wall Street Journal, television channels such as Fox News and Sky, and the 20th Century Fox movie studio.
Two years ago, his UK newspaper division became embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal, which led Rupert Murdoch to close one of the titles, the News of the World.
In July 2011, Wendi Deng jumped from her seat during a UK parliamentary hearing to slap a prankster who tried to shove a shaving-cream pie into Rupert Murdoch’s face.
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Contrary to Tom Cruise child support rumors circulating around the Internet, the actor did not pay Katie Holmes a $50 million lump sum payment for the care of little Suri, Newsday reports.
A pre-nuptial agreement Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes signed means there will be no alimony for the actress. Tom Cruise will be paying approximately $10 million over the course of the next 12 years to Katie Holmes to take care of Suri in a manner in which she has become accustomed, according to information a “source” revealed to TMZ.
Tom Cruise will be paying approximately $10 million over the course of the next 12 years to Katie Holmes to take care of Suri
The quick and quiet divorce and child custody agreement between Tom Cruise and Katie Homes does grant Cruise “significant custodial time” with little Suri, but Holmes has primary physical custody. TMZ reports that previous media articles claiming that Suri Cruise must be in the presence of Katie Holmes’ nanny and bodyguards when she is in Tom Cruise’s care a “absolutely 100% false.” There are however “extremely detailed” custodial provisions about what Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes can discuss with Suri on several topics, one of which being religion. The restrictions on the discussions of Scientology and religion are reportedly “eased” as Suri ages.
“Tom was always most interested in his child,” Tom Cruise’s attorney Bert Fields told People magazine.
“He will have a meaningful relationship with Suri.”
Bert Fields was not able to give a specific time or date for the first visitation dates between Tom Cruise and Suri.
“I don’t know the details of his schedule, so I can’t comment. My guess is he’ll be seeing Suri very soon.”
Bert Fields also told People that there were no Scientologists present during the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes divorce and child custody negotiations.
Tom Cruise’s attorney also maintains that Scientologists were not “directing the negotiations” and calls such claims “hogwash.”
Bert Fields told People that both Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes “dealt rationally” with the custody and divorce issues, hashing out the important matters over several days until both parties were satisfied.
