‘Succession’: The Real People Who Inspired the HBO Hit

In April 2019, The New York Times published a three-part investigation about the legacy of Rupert Murdoch that, among a number of juicy revelations, exposed the media mogul’s attempts to ease tensions among his children through group therapy sessions, including a “therapeutic retreat” at the family ranch in Australia. Roughly nine months earlier, a very similar scene played out on television screens during the first season of Succession. In “Austerlitz,” the HBO drama’s seventh episode, the fictional Roy family begrudgingly gathered in New Mexico for a therapy session after middle son Kendall’s failed attempt to knock his father, Logan, from power—only to discover that the whole gathering was a publicity stunt. 

Succession’s creative team might not have realized they were so closely mirroring reality when they filmed that episode, but the goal has always been to tell a story that felt like it could be happening in real life too. “If you read the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, you’d have a good sense of where we thought the show would go because it’s trying to reflect the world,” show creator Jesse Armstrong told The New Yorker in February, when he also announced that Succession’s upcoming fourth season would be its last. Indeed, many of Succession’s characters and plotlines can be traced back to real people and events. Over the years, the show has employed journalists and writers—media columnist Frank Rich is an executive producer, and novelist Gary Shteyngart and business journalist Merissa Marr have served as consultants—to aid in the accuracy of its world-building.  

Succession’s third season ended more than a year ago with the often at-odds Roy siblings—Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin)—teaming up to try to stop their father (Brian Cox) from selling the family business. But an eleventh hour heel turn from Shiv’s husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), foiled their plans. HBO is keeping a tight lid on the events of the show’s final season—beyond dropping a few bread crumbs in a new trailer—but if previous seasons are any indication, there will be more than a few similarities to recent current events. Ahead, a breakdown of the real-world influences for the fictional world of Succession. 

The Roy Family

Armstrong has said that he drew from several dynastic families—including the Redstones, the Sulzbergers, and the Hearsts—when creating the Roys. But none appear to have been more influential than the Murdochs. In fact, Armstrong first began mining the lives of the rich and powerful for satire with a screenplay called Murdoch, which imagined the family convening for the birthday of Rupert Murdoch. It made the rounds in Hollywood, even landing on the Black List of top unproduced screenplays in 2010, but was never made. 

Armstrong has said that Murdoch is “deeply in the background” of Succession, it’s clear that his work on the former informed the latter. Like the Murdochs, the Roys are a patriarchal family with control over a large media conglomerate. Waystar Royco, which the Roys like to boast is the fifth-largest media company in the world, controls a Fox News–esque conservative cable network called ATN; several newspapers; and a theme park and cruise ship business. Murdoch, meanwhile, has prevailed over News Corp—a powerful print media business whose tentacles reach as far as the UK and Australia—and an entertainment business that, at its height, included broadcast and cable networks, a film and television studio, a live entertainment division, and an Indian television provider. 

Even the family structures of the Murdochs and the Roys are similar. Rupert Murdoch has six children from his first three marriages, including an older daughter, Prudence, who has largely avoided wading into the power struggle that has consumed the three children from his second marriage: Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James. The Roy Family, meanwhile, is made up of oldest son Connor (Alan Ruck)—who instead of working for the family business announces a presidential campaign in the second season—and his three younger siblings, who each believe they have what it takes to succeed their father as CEO of Waystar Royco.