If there's one person to somehow look good from the disgusting News Corp. phone hacking scandal, it's Rupert Murdoch's third wife Wendi Deng Murdoch. She jumped to defend her 80-year-old husband who was the target of a shaving cream pie-holding prankster Jonathan May-Bowles (aka Jonnie Marbles), apparently slapping the man and even turning the tables on him. The Guardian reports, "Deng lunged while startled police officers were barely off the back foot. While a roomful of male advisers also appeared stunned, she scooped up the paper plate fired at her husband and launched it like a grenade back at May-Bowles, a comedian, with an amazing right hook. Such was the force of her shot that the foam directed at her husband's face landed on a police officer and on her own blue-painted toes."
And the Daily Telegraph recounts:
A former champion volleyball player, her fierce instincts propelled her to jump up quicker than anyone else in the room.
Using an open palm, she brought down a blow hard and with full fury on to Marbles' head, just as if she was spiking a volleyball.The outraged Deng was much quicker than anyone else in the room, including James Murdoch, who was sitting next to his father, and police.
After the cameras were directed away from the action, leaving frustrated viewers able to see nothing but the abstract painting behind the MPs, she kept on her counter-offensive, pursuing the attacker and trying to turn the plate of foam back on him.
When Marbles was restrained by others, she turned back to her husband and gently cleared the foam from his face, trying to restore his dignity, and then embraced his head in her arms.
It's also noted that Wendi Deng Murdoch, 42, is 5'10".
WWD.com, which notes that she is Rupert Murdoch's "companion in both the business world -- where she’s advised on the disastrous acquisition of MySpace and lately dabbled in production work for News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox -- and the social circuit -- where the pair are black-tie regulars," asked some security consultants about her reflexes. A former Secret Service agent said, "She happened to be close by and notice it. Whether it’s her or you or me, your reaction is to try to prevent it. It was a valiant attempt on her part, but if it would have been a dangerous chemical, he would have been in a bind there."
There was supposed to be "airport-level" security at the hearing, but, of course, now there's going to be an inquiry on the breach.
