Rupert Murdoch Is Funding a Feminist Ad Campaign. Seriously.

At Lizzy Jagger’s urging, the tycoon has spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to fund pro-ERA newspaper ads in states that have yet to ratify the amendment.

Lloyd Grove
10.31.18 5:11 AM ET

During a sociopolitical moment in which things that were previously considered shocking have become commonplace—Donald Trump’s presidency, for instance—Rupert Murdoch remains full of surprises.

The 87-year-old Australian-born media mogul has been quietly bankrolling a newspaper advertising campaign to make the Equal Rights Amendment, popularly known as the ERA, part of the United States Constitution.

“Mr. Murdoch has two teenage daughters”—the youngest of four daughters from three previous marriages, namely 16-year-old Grace and 15-year-old Chloe by his third ex-wife Wendi Deng—“and men that become aware of the basic inequity in our system are appalled,” said ERA activist Kamala Lopez, an actress and filmmaker who founded Equal Means Equal, a non-profit that supports passage of the amendment.

Murdoch and his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, recently invited Lopez and her actor-husband Joel Marshall to dinner at their Beverly Hills estate to discuss the ERA campaign. Murdoch retains the curiosity of a lifelong newspaper proprietor, so he peppered Lopez with questions, although he had already been funding the full-page newspaper ads for the better part of q year—actually at the behest of impassioned ERA activist Lizzy Jagger, at 34 the eldest child of Jerry and Mick.

“Lizzy became very, very involved [with Equal Means Equal] and did a lot of work,” Lopez said. “She asked for a birthday present from her mom. Her mom said, ‘What do you want for your birthday?’ And she said, ‘I want you to pay for an ad.’ And so her mom looked into it, and her mom… told Rupert. And Rupert was like, ‘What are you even talking about?’ And then I guess they watched the movie, and then he was like, ‘This is ridiculous.’ And then he did his own research, and then… they gave her the birthday present.”

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