Courtroom steps, blacked-out SUVs, fashion that screams quiet luxury and a family at war over one of the world’s largest media corporations. No. Not an unexpected reprise of filming for the TV hit Succession. But the latest instalment of the Murdoch family psychodrama wrapped up in a legal hearing.
For months, we have been gripped by the sight of members of the dynasty arriving at a Nevada court to go to battle over the future of the family media empire. That case, which has played out behind closed doors, came to a dramatic conclusion yesterday as a Nevada commissioner found that Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan had acted in ’bad faith’ in their effort to amend a trust and strip voting power away from three other children.
On one side, Rupert and eldest son Lachlan had wanted to ensure the company retains its conservative voice. On the other, there was Elisabeth – well known thanks to being one of the most powerful women in British TV and partying with the Cotswold glitterati – and James, whose profile was built through roles at the head of various parts of the Murdoch empire and is known as a man with more liberal views than his father and older brother.
All familiar faces. But the shorter blonde woman who has been pictured with them? Less so.
Step forward Prudence “Prue” MacLeod, nee Murdoch. Eldest of the four Murdoch siblings who are pitted on opposing sides over the future of the multibillion-dollar global family business that spans Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and British assets including The Sun and The Times newspapers.
And also the one who’s gone mostly under the radar. Until now.
But Prudence was thrust into the spotlight after Murdoch senior sparked a charged succession war last year. Until then, his first four children had an equal share in the votes that controlled the Murdoch family trust. But then Rupert moved to rewrite the trust’s terms to ensure favoured son Lachlan could secure control, according to The New York Times.
And Elisabeth, James and Prudence did not agree.
The detailed court proceedings have been sealed from public access, meaning few details have emerged so far. Which has left one intriguing question: where has Prudence been hiding all this time? And who exactly is she?
With a profile far more discreet than Lachlan, James or Elisabeth, the mere existence of Prue was a surprise for many. Her older three paternal half-siblings have been in and out of the headlines. Murdoch’s younger daughters Grace and Chloe, born during his marriage to ex-wife number three Wendi Deng, are also on the public radar.
Now Prudence has emerged from the shadows. And while the 66-year-old has only given rare interviews, the little she’s said reveals a woman who marches to a slightly different beat than the rest of the Murdoch clan.
The directorial roles and a seat on the boards of both Times Newspapers Ltd and News Corporation adheres to the Murdoch script. But while her three older siblings have all been heavily involved in different parts of the empire with hands-on roles, Prue’s only day job in the family business was apparently a short stint as a researcher on the News of the World.
Then there’s the fact that she seems more than happy to straight talk to her father. In a rare interview with Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff (The Man Who Owns the News, 2008) a few years ago, Prue once revealed that she’d advised her father to “go somewhere proper” to get his hair dyed. But Murdoch wouldn’t listen.
“He insists on doing it over the sink because he doesn’t want anybody to know,” said Prue. “Well, hello! Look in the mirror. Look at the pictures in the paper.”
The outspokenness is combined with a slightly maverick streak too.
When the Murdoch family prepared to meet up on their various yachts one Christmas for a sailing trip around the Greek islands, Prue decided that she wouldn’t buy a boat. She’d rent instead. “They have massive boats, all of them,” she told Wolff. “I never feel sophisticated enough to be on this big boat. They are all taller than me, that’s the worst thing, so they all look chicer wherever they are, but especially on a boat, where everyone is in shorts or a swimsuit and I’m the short, fat one.”
This sense of being slightly apart from her siblings can be traced to the roots of Prudence’s early life. Of Murdoch’s six children, she was the only one born during his first marriage to model Patricia Booker. By the time she was 10, Prue’s parents had split and her mother is said to have led a “partying lifestyle” following a remarriage to a Swiss jet-setter. Prue then moved to London with her father and his second wife Anna, a Scottish journalist and author. Elisabeth, Lachlan and James were born and the children grew up together with many describing their bond as fierce.
Prue is also said to have been a “difficult stepchild” and her schooling was described as a “disaster” as she attended both state and private schools in London and New York. While Elisabeth, James and Lachlan would all go on to take on huge roles in his media empire, as Prue came of age she’s said to have felt like the “outsider child”. These days, she is described as an easy, relaxed woman with a love of art.
An early marriage to hedge funder Crispin Odey (whose stellar career as one of Britain’s richest investors has been recently mired in claims of sexual harassment) lasted just 15 months.
Real stability came when she married financier Alasdair MacLeod in 1989. The couple are still together, have lived in London and Sydney and are parents to James, Angus and Clementine.
When they met, MacLeod was working at Citibank and while Prue was said to be against him going into the family business, in classic Logan Roy style her father had other ideas and offered MacLeod a job. He went on to work at News Corporation for around 20 years – rising to become managing director.
A year after leaving News Corporation, MacLeod co-founded Macdoch Ventures, a private investment group focusing on innovative agriculture, climate change solutions and seed funding for young companies that “build a better future”. The couple leaned even more heavily into these eco-values when they started the Macdoch Foundation in 2019. It aims to build the “resilience of people and planet” through initiatives including restoring natural landscapes and climate change solutions.
Prue’s climate concerns are shared by brother James who explosively resigned his seat on the board of News Corp in 2020 citing “disagreements over editorial content” before lambasting the “ongoing denial” of the climate issue in the Murdoch empire. But there is certainly no shortage of funds for Prudence to draw on for her philanthropic work.
In 2019, each of Murdoch’s six children made around $2bn (£1.5bn) when he sold 21st Century Fox to Disney. The windfall however was said to have been slightly dented when The Wall Street Journal reported that the patriarch had demanded upwards of $100m back from each of the children as a “sign of respect for the fortune he had earned over the years”.
Murdoch is clearly a towering figure in his family: practically, financially and emotionally. But while other spats with his children, particularly James, have become public knowledge, his relationship with Prue has only once made the news.
Two years after Rupert referred to “my three children” at a press conference in 1997, Prue did her first-ever interview. She told the journalist Murdoch’s comments had sparked “the biggest row I’ve ever had with my father. I rang up, I screamed at him, I hung up. He was very upset.”
The Sydney Morning Herald ran the story under the headline “Forgotten Daughter” and published it on the day of Lachlan’s wedding to Australian supermodel Sarah O’Hare. It reportedly caused a certain froideur between the family during the celebrations.
In the years since, she’s built a life away from the public eye combining her directorial roles with philanthropic work and raising her children. For many, many years, it’s been a successful strategy. Prudence has flown far under the radar, distanced from the drama and gossip surrounding the succession battle that has been playing out between Elisabeth, Lachlan and James.
“I’ve always been low key and not many people know about me,” she once said. “And I like that, I just love that.”
A spokesperson for Prudence, Elisabeth and James Murdoch said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press yesterday said that they welcome the ruling and hope that their family can “move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members.”
But with so much bad family blood already spilled in court many think this is unlikely. The commissioner’s ruling is not final and it will now be passed on to a district judge who could choose to rule differently. Murdoch’s his lawyer, Adam Streisand, said they were disappointed with the ruling and intended to appeal, The New York Times reported.
The judge could take weeks or months to make a decision, which will not be available to the public, but as the public starts to understand the older Murdoch children aren’t a trio, but a quartet, it will remain to be seen who has the winning move in this gripping game of family chess.