Rupert Murdoch
James Murdoch lays bare his relationship with ‘misogynist’ father amid succession fight in rare interview
Rupert Murdoch’s second son reveals bitter details that set the scene for court battle for News Corp empire
More of the Murdoch family’s betrayals, leaks, “mind games”, manipulations, machinations and humiliations have been laid bare, in the wake of a messy court trial that offered tantalising glimpses inside the dynasty.
The American journalist McKay Coppins this weekend published a rare and wide-ranging interview with James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s second-oldest son, who is often portrayed as a bitter rival to his older brother, Lachlan.
What Coppins did not know when he and James began speaking in early 2024, he writes, was that “the Murdochs were in the midst of a private meltdown” – the nasty court battle over the future of media behemoth News Corp, kicked off by the somewhat misleadingly titled “Project Family Harmony”.
The plan saw Rupert inform James, and his sisters, Prudence and Elisabeth, that he was anointing Lachlan as heir. On Rupert’s death, instead of the evenly split family trust previously planned, power would go solely to his older son.
He lost his effort to hand the reins to Lachlan in December last year.
Detailing the many power struggles within the family, Coppins writes that one former News Corp employee claimed Lachlan had referred to the media side of the business as “ShitCo” (a claim a spokesperson for Lachlan denied to Coppins) – a possible echo of RoyCo, the fictional company created by patriarch Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession, commonly regarded as having been inspired by the Murdochs. Lire la suite »
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