'Wendi Deng' Twitter account revealed as fake

A Twitter user posting under the name @Wendi_Deng and purporting to be the wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch has admitted to being an imposter.

Twitter users were intrigued over the past week by the tweets emanating from the newly-created accounts of @Wendi_Deng and @rupertmurdoch, with the latter said to be the News Corporation supremo himself.

Observers had cast doubt on the veracity of both, although the @Wendi_Deng account briefly appeared with a blue tick in its profile signalling it had been verified by Twitter as authentic.

News International yesterday confirmed that the @rupertmurdoch profile was in fact the genuine account of the 80-year-old.

However his wife, who created headlines last year after she jumped to defend Murdoch from a custard-pie wielding assailant at a UK parliamentary committee hearing into the phone-hacking scandal, has not joined the popular social media site.

"As News International has finally come to their senses, it's time to confirm that yes, this is a fake account. I'm not Wendi," the @Wendi_Deng account-holder tweeted this afternoon.

"To those of you who kept maintaining the account was fake, even after being verified, good on you for being suspicious," they added, describing the exercise as "a bit of fun".

The account had attracted over 10,000 followers.

An official Twitter communications account later tweeted: “can confirm @Wendi_Deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time. We apologize for the confusion this caused".