The king sits enthroned in the reception room. His court, in concentric circles, revolves around him, the favorites close by, the others behind. Everyone jostles and maneuvers to be entitled to an audience. To do this, you have to go through a woman with flamboyant red hair, who acts as a mediator to the monarch. The scene, told by a former British minister, does not date from the time of Louis XIV but from June 22. The king in question is Rupert Murdoch, the all-powerful Australian-American media mogul, who was hosting his annual grand reception in London.
Everything the UK has to power was there, in Spencer House, a prestigious 18th century residence.e century praised for the occasion: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife; no less than eleven ministers and a slew of former ministers; the leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer, accompanied by the main executives of his party; the director of MI6, the external secret services; the director of MI5, the internal secret service; influential communications advisers, editors, museum patrons… Everyone came to metaphorically kiss the ring of the great leader, passing under the watchful eye of Rebekah Brooks, the woman who runs Rupert Murdoch’s British affairs, sometimes referred to as an “adopted daughter”.
While pledging allegiance, each murmurs about his state of health. This year, the nonagenarian remained seated throughout the reception. If he remains quick-witted and keeps abreast of world affairs, his very old age is apparent. His joke, launched in 1999 after surviving prostate cancer (“it convinced me of my own immortality”), is just that: a joke.
Four decades of preparation
We repeat the rumors about this supposed recent dinner where he fell asleep on his plate. On its repeated falls, that an article of the Vanity Fair of May has chronicled. On his strange fourth divorce, in 2022, with Jerry Hall, the former wife of Mick Jagger, followed by the announcement of a marriage with an evangelical Christian, Ann Lesley Smith, canceled a few days later. But no one dares to offend him by refusing to go to his party. Legislative elections are looming for the fall of 2024 and media support is being played out now.
The billionaire’s twilight never ends. For about thirty years, his succession has fascinated, that the “murdochologists” have scrutinized the slightest actions and gestures of the descendants. The man has six children, from three different marriages: Prudence, 65, born from the first marriage, who has never been in the family business and presents herself as ” housewife “ ; Grace and Chloe, 22 years old and 20 years old, from a third marriage, who have the same share of inheritance as the others, but have no voting rights in the family holding company; and the three most important, those from the second marriage, Elisabeth, 54, Lachlan, 51 and James, 50.
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