Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng, 42, impressed the world when she swatted away the man who tried to attack her husband on Tuesday. The media mogul was being questioned by MPs in a parliamentary hearing over the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed his global empire.Scroll down for the video of the attack...
Midway through the session, comedian Jonnie Marbles rushed from the public gallery towards the News Corp chairman with a foam pie.
But the 80-year-old tycoon was defended from attack by the lightning reactions of his third wife Wendi, who immediately earned herself the nickname 'Smack Down Sister' in China.
And the members of the committee were impressed with her quick-thinking too, with Labour MP Tom Watson telling the media boss: "Your wife has a very good left hook. "And in the wake of her athletic performance many were left wondering: who exactly is Wendi Deng? She was born Deng Wen Di to strict parents in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, where her father was the director of a factory.
Wendi was highly ambitious, and at the age of 19 in 1988, she moved to the US to study on a visa sponsored by a middle-aged couple from California. Jake Cherry was an expatriate based in China and his wife Joyce recognised the young woman's potential.
They agreed to put her up until she settled down in America. But the couple split and she became involved with her host, then 53, and married him shortly after.
He later said: “She told me I was a father concept to her but it would never be anything else. I loved that girl.”The marriage gained her access to a green card, and from then on she was allowed to live permanently in the States.
Their union came to an abrupt end after her husband discovered that Wendi “had started spending time” with a man her own age.
Seven years later, armed with an MBA from Yale, she moved to Hong Kong. Wendi had secured herself a junior position at Star Television, which is owned by News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s empire. She impressed her boss when she was asked to act as his interpreter.Their work association turned into romance. And in June 1999 the couple tied the knot on board his private yacht, Morning Glory. The marriage came just 17 days after his divorce from his second wife, Anna. He and Anna had been together 33 years, and they had three children, as well as one from his first marriage.
Shortly after, Wendi was mixing in celebrity circles, making appearances at awards ceremonies with her new husband, and rubbing shoulders with A-listers and famous faces, such as Nicole Kidman and Queen Rania of Jordan.Her first child with the media mogul, Grace, was born in 2001, and another daughter, Chloe, followed in 2005.