- Sources claim that Mr Blair and Ms Deng had ‘multiple encounters’ of which Mr Murdoch was unaware
- The former Prime Minister has always maintained his friendship with Ms Deng is platonic
- The Blair camp insists the claims are 'ridiculous and untrue'
Tycoon and his TV girl: Mr Murdoch and glamorous Wendi in 2011. They met in China when she worked on his satellite network
Relations between Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair have collapsed over reports of Mr Blair’s friendship with the media mogul’s ex-wife, Wendi Deng.
The former Prime Minister has always maintained his friendship with Ms Deng is platonic.
But Mr Murdoch is said to regard the rift with Mr Blair as ‘terminal’ and has refused to speak to him since he filed for divorce from Ms Deng in June. Mr Blair has tried to contact Mr Murdoch but has been rebuffed.
Sources close to Mr Murdoch in London say that staff at his home in California claimed Mr Blair and Ms Deng stayed there overnight at the same time on weekends in October 2012 and April this year, without Mr Murdoch’s knowledge.
It is also claimed that Mr Blair and Ms Deng had ‘multiple encounters’ of which Mr Murdoch was unaware. They are said to include a weekend overnight stay at Mr Murdoch’s home in Los Angeles and meetings in London and New York.
There is no suggestion by this newspaper of any impropriety by Mr Blair or Ms Deng. And Mr Blair’s friends have repeatedly denied he had an affair with Ms Deng.
The divorce of Mr Murdoch, 82, and his 44-year-old third wife, was finalised by a US court last week.
A bitter war of words broke out last night between the rival camps of Mr Blair and Mr Murdoch.
A close friend of Mr Blair said: ‘Rupert Murdoch is putting out ridiculous stories about Wendi and Tony which are not true. It is the ravings of a sad old man.’
A friend of News Corporation boss Mr Murdoch, whose newspaper empire includes The Sun and The Times, said: ‘Rupert Murdoch will have nothing more to do with Tony Blair. Not ever.’
A source close to Mr Murdoch said: ‘Rupert has been thorough, careful and has not acted lightly.
‘If you think that Rupert made a decision to end his marriage and a long-term friendship without just cause, you are sorely mistaken.’
An individual who has known Mr Murdoch for many years, said: ‘Rupert and Wendi’s marriage was already in a bad way. But the connection with Blair did not help.’
Mr Murdoch and Mr Blair formed one of the most powerful alliances in British politics, and it was a key factor in the three election victories which kept the Labour leader in Downing Street from 1997 to 2007.
Powerful allies: Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair in Washington in 2008
Unlike other leaders endorsed by Mr Murdoch, such as Margaret Thatcher, Mr Blair became a family friend which culminated in Mr Blair becoming godfather to the Murdochs’ daughter Grace in 2010. Sources close to the household staff at Mr Murdoch’s sprawling $20 million cattle ranch in Carmel Valley, California, said the staff told Mr Murdoch of two overnight stays at weekends by Ms Deng and Mr Blair at the ranch – both without Mr Murdoch’s knowledge.
Murdoch bought the ranch with second wife, Anna, in the 1990s and it is where his three older children, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James spent their summer holidays.
‘I come here because my family and I love it,’ Mr Murdoch said in 2006. ‘I feel completely relaxed. It’s where we gather as a family. I use the ranch as a retreat to entertain my executive and senior team members. People appreciate that you entertain them in your home.’
Sources close to Mr Murdoch claim Ms Deng and Mr Blair also met in London – where Murdoch owns a luxury apartment near The Ritz hotel – and in New York.
They are also said to have stayed overnight in Los Angeles, where Murdoch also has a home.
It is understood that the Murdochs’ daughters, Grace, 11 and Chloe, nine, were not present at any of the alleged meetings.
Mr Blair’s friends are adamant that the relationship between him and Ms Deng was ‘entirely innocent and above board.’ One said: ‘They never met alone, there were always others around.
They are friends and Blair is godfather to one of the couple’s children, for heaven’s sake.’ Allies of Mr Murdoch say he was ‘shocked’ to learn Wendi had met Mr Blair without his knowledge, and on more than one occasion – and in particular that Mr Blair had been in his home without him knowing.
Murdoch's $20million California ranch: Sources close to staff at the sprawling ranch say Mr Blair and Ms Deng had two overnight stays here at the weekends without the knowledge of Rupert Murdoch
Mr Murdoch’s camp insist the account of Wendi’s meetings with Mr Blair are accurate.
They say that the alleged meeting at Mr Murdoch’s ranch in Carmel was reported back to him by domestic staff. They deny he used private investigators to check on the movements of Ms Deng and Mr Blair.
Claims of an affair between Mr Blair and Ms Deng swept the internet when Mr Murdoch filed for divorce in June. They were sparked by a tweet from BBC journalist Robert Peston who said: ‘Am told that undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping and hate myself for wanting to know what they are.’
At the time, a spokesman for Mr Blair denied he had had an affair with Ms Deng.
The friendship between Ms Deng and Mr Blair was well known long before the Murdoch marriage break up. In 2012, in an article in the Guardian newspaper, headlined ‘Tony Blair and the Murdochs: a family affair’, Murdoch’s biographer Michael Wolff described Mr Blair as ‘one of Wendi’s first official social conquests.’
Ambitious: Wendi pictured with Cherie Blair during an event to promote the Chinese version of the former PM's autobiography
Wolff suggested Mr Blair regarded Ms Deng as a key link in his political wooing of her husband. He wrote: ‘Blair becomes one of Wendi’s first official social conquests, in her developing role both as Murdoch social emissary and social power player. Wendi . . . is a way for Blair to see himself as having control of Murdoch, of joining with Wendi to handle him.’
Wolff said that when he wrote about Mr Murdoch in 2008, Ms Deng urged him to speak to Blair and ‘personally set up the appointment.’
In an article in the New York Times last year, friends of Ms Deng said the Murdochs were living ‘largely separate lives.’ She looked after their children while her husband focused on his business interests, it said.
Mr Blair’s place at the heart of the Murdoch dynasty appeared to be sealed at Grace’s christening in 2010 on the banks of the River Jordan, at the spot where Jesus is said to have been baptised. Mr Blair wore a white suit.
Also there were Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Queen Rania of Jordan, Donald Trump’s daughter and a photographer from Hello! magazine
Case: Murdoch and Wendi 14-year marriage came to an end at the New York State Supreme court earlier this week after six-minute divorce hearing
Mr Murdoch and Ms Deng met in 1997 when he visited Shanghai for a business trip and wanted to hire a translator and guide.
Ms Deng, a brilliant and highly ambitious graduate from America’s Yale business school, and who worked at Star TV, Murdoch’s Asian satellite network, came to his rescue. Mr Murdoch later said: ‘Who wouldn’t fall in love with a beautiful woman like that?’
A spokesperson for Mr Murdoch declined to comment, as did Ms Deng’s spokesman. We emailed questions to Mr Blair’s spokesperson yesterday morning. She said she would reply later in the day, but despite repeated calls and emails, declined to make a statement.
A source close to Mr Blair said that he had insisted claims of an affair were ‘categorically untrue’ and that remained his position.
Tony and Rupert, an unlikely flirtation that changed the face of British politics
By GLEN OWENWhen Tony Blair accepted Rupert Murdoch’s invitation to address a News Corporation summit in Australia in July 1995, he changed a fundamental dynamic of British politics.
Mr Murdoch introduced the then Labour leader to the Hayman Island gathering by telling them: ‘If the British press is to be believed, today is all part of a Blair-Murdoch flirtation.’
The media mogul then added: ‘If that flirtation is ever consummated, I suspect we will end up making love like two porcupines – very carefully.’
Appearances: Blair and Murdoch at the Leadership Awards given during the Atlantic Council of the United States Gala in 2008
The courtship led two years later to The Sun, which has always given the clearest indication of Mr Murdoch’s views, dramatically switching its support to Labour.
In March 1997, just six weeks before the General Election, the paper’s front page headline read: ‘The Sun Backs Blair.’
An accompanying editorial described Mr Blair as the ‘breath of fresh air’ that Britain needed, and called the Tories ‘tired, divided and rudderless’. It dealt a devastating blow to John Major’s
Government, and marked the end of more than 20 years of continuous backing for the Tories.
Mr Murdoch – and by extension The Sun – had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Conservatives since Margaret Thatcher had become leader in 1975, attracted by her anti-union stance and her unflinching opposition to Brussels.
Mr Blair’s gambit had been vindicated, despite the fury of the ‘Old Labour’ wing of his party.
Neil Kinnock, who had been vilified by The Sun during the 1992 election campaign, felt particularly betrayed.
The paper’s animosity to him had infamously culminated in a front page which superimposed his head on to a light bulb with the headline: ‘If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.’
But, as Mr Blair explained in his memoirs, A Journey, it seemed ‘obvious’ that he should accept the invitation. ‘The country’s most powerful newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion’s den,’ he wrote. ‘You go, don’t you?’
Married: Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng pose near the Statue of Liberty on their wedding day in 1999
Although critical of many of the Labour leader’s policies, The Sun maintained its support for Mr Blair through both of his subsequent landslide election victories.
The pro-Labour line held until Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in June 2007.
A series of increasingly hostile editorials culminated in a coup de theatre on 30 September 2009, deliberately timed to appear the day after Mr Brown’s last speech to the Labour Party conference before the 2010 general election.
The Sun ran the headline: ‘Labour’s Lost It’ and announced that it was switching back to the Tories in the hope that the party could ‘put the great back into Great Britain’, a move which enraged Mr Brown. Copies of the newspaper were torn up on stage.
Assuming that The Sun remains an impeccable guide to Mr Murdoch’s thinking, then it appears he currently supports David Cameron – but with reservations. In his memoirs, Mr Blair admitted that he has always found Murdoch to be ‘an enigma’.
He wrote: ‘In the end – and I am aware of the shrieks of disbelief as I write this – I came to have a grudging respect and even liking for him. He was hard, no doubt. He was Right-wing.
‘I did not share or like his attitudes on Europe, social policy or on issues such as gay rights, but there were two points of connection: he was an outsider, and he had balls.’
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