‘You’ve blown a hole in the family’: The inside story of the Murdoch succession drama
It was at his home in Mayfair, London in December 2023 that Rupert Murdoch collapsed and thought he was about to die. In fact, he had fainted.
His exhausting trip, to convince his eldest daughters that the plan to change the family trust, disenfranchise all the siblings other than Lachlan, who would have unfettered control of the two multibillion-dollar businesses, News Limited and Fox Corp, had failed sensationally – paving the path for the bitter legal battle in a closed Nevada courtroom last year. Which he lost.
Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Elena Zhukova Murdoch, in Reno, Nevada in September.Credit: AP
“You are completely disenfranchising me and my siblings,” his daughter Elisabeth told him, according to a report in the New York Times detailing the inside story of the latest bitter brawl inside the family that inspired the TV drama Succession.
“You’ve blown a hole in the family,” Elisabeth said.
His desperate plea to eldest daughter Prue also fell on deaf ears.
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“These companies are my legacy,” he said, reading from his talking points. “I have put everything into them over my life.” He stressed their role as a “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world”.
The Times said it obtained thousands of pages of documents and the complete court transcript of a trial held behind closed doors.
It included the fact that the trust that allows the family to control its media empire, despite having just a minority economic interest, expires in 2030.
