Ex-Italian leader tarnished by scandals
Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longestserving prime minister, despite scandals over sex-fueled parties and allegations of corruption, has died, Italian media reported Monday. He was 86.
Berlusconi was admitted Friday to Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital, his second hospitalization in months for treatment of chronic leukemia. He also suffered over the years from heart ailments and prostate cancer and in 2020 was hospitalized for COVID-19.
Berlusconi used his television networks and immense wealth to launch a long political career, inspiring both loyalty and loathing.
To admirers, the threetime prime minister was a capable and charismatic statesman who sought to elevate Italy on the world stage. To critics, he was a populist who threatened to undermine democracy by wielding political power as a tool to enrich himself and his businesses.
His Forza Italia party was a coalition partner with current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who came to power last year.
Berlusconi’s friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin put him at odds with Meloni, a supporter of Ukraine. On Berlusconi’s 86th birthday, as the war raged, Putin sent vodka to the former Italian leader, who boasted that he returned the favor by sending back Italian wine.
When Donald Trump launched his political career, many drew comparisons to Berlusconi, noting that both spent years in business before entering politics, sought to upend the existing order and grabbed attention for their over-the-top personalities and lavish lifestyles.
Meloni remembered Berlusconi “above all as a fighter,” telling Italian TV “he was a man who had never been afraid to defend his beliefs.”
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi recalled Berlusconi’s divisive legacy.
“Silvio Berlusconi made history in this country. Many loved him, many hated him. All must recognize that his impact on political life, but also economics, sports and television, has been without precedent,” he tweeted.
As Berlusconi aged, some derided his perpetual tan, hair transplants and live-in girlfriends who were decades younger. However, for years, he seemed untouchable, despite the personal scandals.
Criminal cases were launched but ended in dismissals when statutes of limitations ran out in Italy’s slow-moving justice system or when Berlusconi succeeded on appeal. Investigations targeted his steamy “bunga bunga” parties — involving young women and minors — and his many businesses, including the soccer team AC Milan, Italy’s three biggest private TV networks, magazines, a daily newspaper and advertising and film companies.
Only one investigation led to a conviction: a tax fraud case stemming from a sale of movie rights. The conviction was upheld in 2013 by Italy’s top criminal court, but Berlusconi was spared prison because of his age.
He was stripped of his Senate seat and banned from running or holding public office for six years.
He stayed at the helm of Forza Italia, the center-right party he created when he entered politics in the 1990s. With no groomed successor in sight, voters started to desert it. He eventually held office again, elected to the European Parliament at age 82 and then, last year, to the Italian Senate.
Berlusconi’s party was eclipsed as the dominant force on Italy’s right: first by the League, led by the antimigrant populist Matteo Salvini, then by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy Party, with its roots in neo-fascism. After elections in 2022, Meloni formed a governing coalition with the help of Berlusconi and others.
Berlusconi suffered personal comedowns as well. He lost his standing as Italy’s richest man, although his sprawling media and real estate holdings left him a billionaire several times over.
In 2013, guests at one of his parties included an underage Moroccan dancer who, prosecutors alleged, had sex with Berlusconi in exchange for cash and jewelry. After a trial spiced by lurid details, a Milan court initially convicted Berlusconi of paying for sex with a minor and using his office to try to cover it up. Both parties denied the allegations, and he was eventually acquitted.
The Roman Catholic Church, at times sympathetic to his conservative politics, was scandalized by his antics, and his wife of nearly 20 years divorced him, but Berlusconi was unapologetic. He insisted that voters were impressed by his brashness.
“The majority of Italians in their hearts would like to be like me and see themselves in me and in how I behave,” he said in 2009, during his third and final stint as prime minister.
His second term, from 2001 to 2006, was perhaps his golden era, when he became Italy’s longest-serving head of government and boosted its global profile through his friendship with President George W. Bush.
Berlusconi was born Sept. 29, 1936, in Milan, the son of a middle-class banker. He earned a law degree and started a construction company at 25.
But his astronomical wealth came from the media. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he circumvented Italy’s state TV monopoly, RAI, by creating a de facto network in which local stations all showed the same programming. RAI and his Mediaset network accounted for about 90% of the national market in 2006.
His first government in 1994 collapsed after eight months when an ally who led an anti-immigrant party yanked support.
In 2008, Berlusconi bounced back for what would be his final term as prime minister. It ended abruptly in 2011, when financial markets lost faith in him.
Berlusconi was married in 1965 to Carla Dall’Oglio, with whom he had two children. He married Veronica Lario in 1990. They had three children.