She is the daughter Rupert Murdoch once famously said he had not planned having, and she has also been at the centre of one of the most intriguing family feuds the world has witnessed in recent years which ultimately threatened one of the greatest media dynasties of the modern age.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But in New York on Tuesday morning, Sydney time, 14-year-old Helen Grace Murdoch was nothing more than a star-struck teenager by her mother Wendi Deng Murdoch's side making her first major public appearance and no doubt causing her 84-year-old father some angst.
The mother and daughter duo were bathed in flashbulbs as they arrived at the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala 2015 in New York, an annual fundraiser hosted by Vogue editrix and fashion doyenne Anna Wintour which attracts a stellar line up of stars, which this year included Beyonce, Jennifer Lawrence and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Last year Wendi Deng Murdoch was named co-host of the ball, which has a Chinese-inspired theme to celebrate the opening of an exhibition titled China: Through the Looking Glass. Murdoch told reporters one of her passions was "fashion and Chinese culture and how that impacts on each other".
The event represents one of the first big public outings for Deng since her 13 year marriage to Murdoch came to an abrupt end in June 2013.
The union also produced a younger daughter, Chloe. It was the birth of Murdoch's two youngest daughters which was at the catalyst of a dispute between Murdoch's adult children and his new wife over their rights to the vast family empire the octogenarian has built over the past 60 years.
When Murdoch married his then 32-year-old Chinese-born wife following a whirlwind romance and just days after officially divorcing his wife of 32 years Anna, the media mogul had told reporters he had no plans for any more children.
But that all changed within 18 months of marrying Deng when she gave birth to the 4.2 kilogram baby named they Helen, named after Rupert's sister Helen Handbury, who died in 2004. Her arrival was modestly announced in the births sections of Murdoch's Melbourne tabloid the Herald Sun. The notice said: "Mother and baby doing well and Dad delighted."
Today Helen is one of the richest teenagers on the planet and is fluent in both Mandarin and English, having spoken her mother's native tongue since she was a baby, a language Wendi would reportedly use with her daughters at home and much to the frustration of her aging husband.
