Three explosive revelations from ‘Dynasty: The Murdochs’ on Netflix
While everyone has seen the chaos of inheritance play out in soap operas and movies, Dynasty: The Murdochs on Netflix serves as a reality check on how muddy things can get in real life, especially when a multibillion-dollar media empire is at stake.
In the four-episode docu-series, currently streaming on Netflix, the Murdoch family’s infamous battle of succession is captured, in which the patriarch Rupert Murdoch eventually chose to go against the existing trust fund in order to give Lachlan Murdoch sole control of his empire. The decision was met with a court battle in 2024, where Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth and James Murdoch opposed their father’s decision, estranging the family in the process.
The case was ultimately settled in 2025 with Lachlan Murdoch formally assuming Rupert’s position as Rupert’s successor and the other children receiving $1.1billion each in their shares. They are no longer beneficiaries and have no voting rights. Rupert’s youngest children, Grace and Chloe, have no voting rights but are beneficiaries of the trust.
According to PEOPLE, citing a source close to the Murdochs, not every claim made in the documentary was allegedly verified. But it still didn’t fail to leave viewers in jaw-drops, so here are three explosive revelations from Dynasty: The Murdochs that you might not have known.
Three explosive revelations from Dynasty: The Murdochs
The Murdoch family panicked after this Succession episode
The Murdoch family’s messy dynamics and the contentious battle for succession of the media empire are said to have inspired the Emmy Award-winning HBO series Succession, at the centre of which was the fictionalised Roy family based on the Murdochs. Almost every Murdoch has watched the show except James.
In a fourth-season episode of Succession, the family patriarch, Logan Roy, loosely based on Rupert Murdoch, unexpectedly dies, leaving the family in a state of mess over not having chosen a successor before his death. When Elisabeth Murdoch watched the episode, she and her representative Mark Devereux allegedly began to “panic,” fearing their lives could look like that if they didn’t put a plan in place.
Following the episode, Elisabeth Murdoch and Devereux reportedly drafted the “Succession Memo,” enlisting everything the four children of the family had to start considering regarding the possibilities of what could follow Rupert Murdoch’s death. “This memo is circulated among the children, and the idea is that they’re going to begin this conversation – if not with their father, then at least on the margins around their father,” The New York Times journalist and Murdoch expert, Jonathan Mahler, said in the documentary.
Rupert Murdoch allegedly sided with Fox News chairman over his sons on multiple occasions
In Dynasty: The Murdochs, many journalists and researchers are of the opinion that the patriarch actually set his children against each other, forcing them to not only compete for inheritance but also his love and attention. “He wasn’t raising children – he was raising possible successors,” Jim Rutenberg, Murdoch expert for The New York Times, said in the Netflix docu-series.
While it’s no surprise that his kids were working different jobs across his media empire, at some point in their respective careers, Lachlan and James Murdoch were reportedly working under the supervision of Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. But it turns out neither son sat well with Ailes, leading Rupert Murdoch to choose Ailes over his children on multiple occasions.
The interviewees recounted a heated disagreement between Ailes and Lachlan Murdoch after Fox News received an envelope supposedly with what seemed like anthrax in 2001. Despite Lachlan’s urges to keep the letter under wraps following the FBI’s advisory, Ailes went public with the news regardless. “Lachlan finds out about this and storms downstairs to confront Ailes directly, ‘What are you doing?’” Australian journalist Paddy Manning claimed.
Lachlan allegedly attempted to “calm Ailes down,” but it evolved into a verbal fight in front of several people, said The Washington Post journalist Sarah Elison. “Roger goes directly to Rupert, and Rupert assures him and says, ‘Don’t worry about the boy.’ It was a classic Murdoch moment – business over family,” she added.
This wasn’t the sole incident, as Lachlan Murdoch and Ailes eventually got into another kerfuffle after the former vetoed a program the latter wanted to run, making his father side with Ailes once again. In fact, Elizabeth Ailes told the Daily Beast in 2023 that her husband never really respected James’ position in the company, calling him names like “Tweedle Dumb” and “Tweedle Dumber.”
After allegations of sexual harassment surfaced in 2016, Ailes resigned. He passed away the following year.
Rupert Murdoch allegedly encouraged his lawyer to ask James “personal questions” during the deposition
When the 2024 legal battle began between Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth, James Murdoch, and Rupert Murdoch in the aftermath of the patriarch’s decision to go against the 1999 family trust in order to make Lachlan Murdoch the sole successor, the four siblings, alongside Rupert, were deposed.
Every member was seared well, but James Murdoch’s deposition turned out to be brutally personal. “The deposition was much more difficult for James emotionally than I think he was prepared for,” The Atlantic reporter and Murdoch expert, McKay Coppins, said.
“When he walked into the boardroom, James saw that it wasn’t just his father’s lawyer and his lawyer – but sitting in this office was his father, himself. James didn’t know that Rupert would be there. This is the first time he had seen Rupert in years – they were fully estranged – his dad just sat down across from him. They didn’t talk to each other.”
While they didn’t talk to each other, James’ father’s attorney kept asking “incredibly witheringly personal questions,” including “Have you ever accomplished anything on your own?” or “Why don’t you ever take responsibility for the things that go wrong in your life?” Questions allegedly even escalated to why he didn’t wish his father on his 90th birthday.
Needless to say, James struggled to concentrate. However, it soon dawned upon him that the questions were “actually coming from his father,” claimed Coppins in Dynasty: The Murdochs.