Berlusconi shows off his party palace
Former Italian prime minister claims it’s ‘simply a dining room’
Silvio Berlusconi has for the first time lifted the lid on the secret chamber that hosted his notorious “bunga bunga” parties.
A string of models and showgirls have claimed it was the scene of debauched stripteases, “mutual fondling” and Bacchanalian excess.
But the former Italian prime minister claims that far from being a den of iniquity, it was — and still is — nothing more than an elegant salon where he entertained guests during respectable, candlelit soirees where everyone kept their clothes on.
Berlusconi showed off the room in his Milan home to his biographer, American Alan Friedman, asking: “Are you sure, do you have the courage (to see it)? Then follow me!”
The lurid accounts of the “bunga bunga” parties came from telephone conversations between showgirls and actresses that were intercepted as part of an investigation into suspicions that Berlusconi slept with an underage prostitute, the Moroccan known as Ruby the Heartstealer.
But the Priapic figurines and nuns’ outfits are long gone — when ushered into the inner sanctum of Villa Arcore, Friedman encountered a 20 metre long dining room dominated by a large table with seating for 36 people.
The walls were decorated with baroque mirrors and antique paintings with a stage at one end — not for stripteases, at least not any more, but for a small orchestra.
“It is simply a dining room, where I hold my soirees. I’ve hosted dinners here for 30 years and I continue to do so,” said Berlusconi.
In the biography, entitled My Way, Berlusconi, 79, admits Ruby, whose real name is Karima El Mahroug, was among the young women invited to his dinners, but denies having sex with her.
During a trial in 2013, he was convicted of paying her for sex when she was 17 — Italy’s legal age for prostitution is 18. He was sentenced to seven years in prison but acquitted on appeal last year.
“Ruby always told people that she was 24 years old. And she certainly looked it. She was very intelligent and very cunning, because she had had a very difficult life. But there’s no way that I had intimate relations with her,” he said.
The book also recounts an anecdote involving British Prime Minister David Cameron, in which he was preparing to fly to Rome for a state dinner in August 2010. He reportedly told his wife, Samantha, not to worry about the trip, as an aide would “pull me out of the Jacuzzi before the whores turn up.”