“MANY loved him, many hated him.”
So began the tributes to Silvio Berlusconi — the controversial Italian politician who made outlandish Boris Johnson look like staid Theresa May — as it was revealed he has died.
The perma-tanned billionaire, Italy’s longest-serving Prime Minister of modern times and who who once described himself as the “Jesus Christ of politics”, was notorious for his “bunga bunga” sex parties and scrapes with the law.
The father of five died yesterday aged 86 at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital surrounded by his family.
He had been re-admitted last Friday for pre-planned tests.
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In April the former PM, just 5ft 5ins and who never stopped dying his hair, had been rushed to the hospital with a lung infection.
Doctors discovered he was suffering from rare blood cancer myelomonocytic leukaemia and only allowed him home three weeks ago.
Italy will observe a national day of mourning tomorrow, while all Italian and European flags on public buildings have been lowered to half-mast.
Current Italian PM Giorgia Meloni praised Berlusconi as a “courageous fighter” and “one of the most influential men in the history of Italy”.
Former PM Matteo Renzi’s tribute was perhaps more fitting: “Many loved him, many hated him, but today everyone must acknowledge his unprecedented impact on politics, the economy, sport and TV.”
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said: “An era is over. Farewell Silvio.”
Naughty nuns
Indeed, while he was PM in four governments between 1994 and 2011, his two decades in power were mired in sex, sleaze and corruption scandals.
A former cruise-line crooner, he stood trial 70 times, appeared in court 2,500 times and his defence bills cost more than £150million.
He spent seven years in the political wilderness, after revelations about sordid three-times-a-week “bunga bunga” parties at his villa.
Witnesses told of naughty nuns stripping, lap-dancing competitions and sex workers performing lurid acts on phallic statues.
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A model who spoke out, claiming Satanic rituals and under-age sex were performed at Berlusconi’s home, Villa Acore, near Milan, died of suspected chemical poisoning.
Despite the scandal, the media tycoon — Italy’s third richest man, who also owned AC Milan football club for 31 years — was able to return to politics and even became a member of the European Parliament.
A bank worker’s son, Berlusconi was born on September 29, 1936, and grew up in a middle-class home.
His mother Rosa was a secretary at the Pirelli tyre factory.
Nat King Cole fan Silvio’s first job was as a singer on a cruise ship, before selling vacuum cleaners.
He made his first fortune in construction, setting up a house-building firm with a loan from the Milan bank his dad Luigi worked at.
Berlusconi went on to create a media empire of TV networks, publishing companies and ad agencies.
He transformed Italian TV with programmes featuring scantily-clad girls.
By 1986 Berlusconi had become so wealthy he was able to save AC Milan from bankruptcy.
He sold the club in 2017 to a Chinese consortium for £627million.
Carlo Ancelotti, who won two Champions League titles as a player for AC Milan then took the club to more European successes in 2003 and 2007 as manager, tweeted last night: “Today’s sadness doesn’t erase the happy moments spent together . . . Thanks President.
Berlusconi went into politics in 1994, founding his centre-right party Forza Italia, named after a football chant “Go on, Italy!”
That year he became the first PM of Italy never to have held government office before. His first term lasted just eight months.
Yet his second spell as PM, from 2001 to 2006, is the longest by any Italian leader since the Second World War.
He returned to power in 2008 and the following year, when an earthquake hit the Abruzzo region killing hundreds, Berlusconi told the 28,000 homeless in tents to imagine they were on a camping holiday.
But in 2011, the scale of Italy’s massive debt crisis forced him to stand down.
By that time Berlusconi was being accused of bribery, tax fraud and underage sex.
His long-suffering wife Veronica had divorced him the previous year, having earlier won a public apology from him after he publicly told TV star Aida Yespica: “With you I would go anywhere, even a desert island.”
Twice-married Berlusconi’s secret “bunga bunga” parties were exposed in 2010, after he phoned a police station asking cops to release a teenager who had been accused of stealing a 3,000-euro bracelet.
Terrified that Karima el-Mahroug would reveal his sex secrets during questioning, Berlusconi secured her release by telling detectives she was the niece of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
In reality she was a 17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer and sex worker who went by the name “Ruby the Heart Stealer”.
When prosecutors found out about the PM’s intervention they launched an investigation which would rock Italian politics to its core.
During questioning, Ruby revealed how Berlusconi told her bunga bunga was a harem he had copied from ex-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, where girls took their clothes off and provided physical pleasures.
When the story blew up, scores of women came forward revealing more sordid details from the basement parties at his palatial villa.
The women claimed the politician sat in a throne-like chair while glamorous girls pole danced and stripped in front of him.
Berlusconi would choose a few girls as “winners” — who he then had sex with.
Moroccan model Imane Fadil, 34, revealed how some young women dressed as nuns would strip and pole-dance.
In court, where Berlusconi was accused of having under-age sex, Imane said some girls were paid 10,000 euros to stay the night with the former Prime Minister.
She claimed Berlusconi offered her £1,700 in cash, telling Imane: “Don’t be offended.”
Model Ambra Battilana, then 18 was sent to one of his parties in 2010 by her agent.
She told magistrates he kissed guests’ naked breasts while they fondled him.
The media mogul dismissed the parties as “convivial” dinners with food and laughter.
A self-confessed womaniser, he never denied sleeping with sex workers — only paying for them.
Any money given to was a “generous” gift, because he wanted to help, he claimed.
Mafia money
At an EU summit in 2010 Berlusconi told PM David Cameron: “Take a mistress in Brussels. It’s the only way to get through these damned things.”
In June 2013 he was sentenced to seven years’ jail for paying for sex with 17-year-old Karima and banned from public office for life.
But his conviction was overturned when an appeal judge ruled there was doubt about whether Berlusconi knew Ruby was a minor.
He was also cleared on appeal of abusing the powers of the prime minister’s office to avoid theft charges against Karima.
But that year he was forced out of parliament after a conviction for corporate tax fraud was upheld by the country’s highest court.
During his trial it was claimed the billionaire had paid “conspicuous sums” in protection money to the mafia for two decades, though Berlusconi always denied links to the mob.
He avoided jail and was ordered to do a year of community service at a home for people with Alzheimer’s.
Berlusconi’s ban on running for office was lifted a year early for “good behaviour” — just in time for the 2018 elections, which he failed to win.
But he won a seat in the European parliament in 2019 and last October was elected a senator after his party won power in a coalition with Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.
Last September, on his birthday — as the war in Ukraine raged — Russia’s President Putin sent Berlusconi best wishes and vodka.
Berlusconi’s girlfriend, politician Marta Fascina, 53 years his junior, was at his bedside with his five children, who will inherit his £5billion fortune.
Last night many Italians who loved his larger-than-life character were in mourning.
As Berlusconi had told them: “I’m no saint. The majority of Italians in their hearts would like to be like me and see themselves in me and in how I behave. I love life! I love women!”
GAFFS GALORE
DESPITE political success and personal fortune, Berlusconi had made appalling gaffs:
- When Senator Barack Obama become the first black US President in 2008, Berlusconi called him “handsome, young and also suntanned”.
- In 2006 he told supporters: “I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I’m a patient victim. I sacrifice myself for everyone.”
- On an Italian TV show in 2006 5ft 5ins Berlusconi compared himself to French leader Napoleon Bonaparte: “Only Napoleon did more than I have done. But I am taller.”
- When AC Milan lost to Bologna in the 2008/9 season he said of coach Carlo Ancelotti: “Ancelotti is chubby enough already. He has eaten so many panettones.”
- In 2010 he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel an “unf***able larda**e”.
- When Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko moved from AC Milan to Chelsea in 2006, Berlusconi said: “He had to submit to the wishes of his wife.”
- In 2022, he told players of his Monza football team he would bring “a bus of whores into the locker room” if they beat a top Serie A rival.