A spokesperson for former UK prime minister Tony Blair has denied rumors that his client is having an affair with Wendi Deng, the Chinese-American business woman at the start of divorce proceedings with media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
When asked by the Hollywood Reporter to comment on the rumored affair, the spokesperson said: "If you are asking if they are having an affair, the answer is no."
Deng's divorce from Murdoch was announced just yesterday, but already a series of wild rumors have begun to swirl. Robert Peston, the BBC business editor close to the Murdochs, has alluded to a "jaw dropping" reason for the divorce, and Gawker's John Koblin noticed yesterday that people appeared to be searching for "Wendi Deng Tony Blair Affair" on Google.
Koblin reasoned that perhaps people were searching for a 2012 article by Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff that detailed Deng and Blair's close, yet platonic, relationship, entitled "Tony Blair and the Murdochs: a family affair"— an article where the comments are closed due to "legal reasons."
Wolff himself is now having a little fun with the rumors and retweeting those who point out the very present-tense nature of the Blair affair denial.
Blair's relationship with the Murdoch family has been relatively controversial already — despite playing down his closeness to the family for years, in 2011 it was revealed that Blair was close enough to be godfather to one of Deng's daughters.
Blair is not expected to make a statement himself, the Hollywood Reporter reports.
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