"In recent years, Rupert Murdoch has suffered a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and a torn Achilles tendon, a source close to the mogul told me. Many of these episodes went unreported in the press, which was just how Murdoch liked it. Murdoch assiduously avoids any discussion of a future in which he isn’t in command of his media empire. “I’m now convinced of my own immortality,” he famously declared after beating prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 69. But unlike the politicians Murdoch has bullied into submission with his tabloids, human biology is immovable. 'There’s been a joke in the family for a long time that 40 may be the new 30, but 80 is 80,' a source close to Murdoch said. On March 11, he turned 92." -- from Gabriel Sherman's Vanity Fair cover story, "Inside Rupert Murdoch’s Succession Drama." Login with Patreon to view this post