Что день, то короче к могиле их путь.
Погрязший в скандалах, разведенный за “связь с несовершеннолетними” и наиболее известный по печально известным секс-вечеринкам “Bunga Bunga” с “Сердцеедкой” Руби… он сравнивал себя с Иисусом! Удивительная жизнь Сильвио Берлускони.
Сильвио Берлускони, хвастливый миллиардер, медиа-магнат, который дольше всех занимал пост премьер-министра Италии, несмотря на скандалы, связанные с его вечеринками с групповухой и обвинениями в коррупции, умер в возрасте 86 лет.
Этот яркий персонаж, однажды сравнивший себя с Иисусом, десятилетиями доминировал в общественной жизни Италии, но большая часть его жизни также была сопряжена со скандалами.
Задолго до того, как Дональд Трамп превратил свой успех в бизнесе в заявку на Белый дом, Берлускони очаровал миллионы итальянцев, представив себя как человека, который сделал себя сам, гедониста, не стесняющегося высказать свое мнение, вплоть до оскорбления коллег-лидеров (помните шутку про “загорелогой Обаму”? – прим. перев.).
Хотя он приобрел репутацию харизматичного государственного деятеля, он также стал известен своими так называемыми секс-вечеринками “Bunga Bunga”, которые посещали молодые девушки, включая несовершеннолетних эскортниц, таких как “Ruby the Heart Stealer”.
Обвинения были прекращены только в феврале 2023 года после его оправдания. Берлускони также обладал огромным влиянием благодаря своим интересам на телевидении и в газетах – он фактически изобрел коммерческое телевидение в Италии – владению футбольным клубом AC Milan и своему огромному богатству, будучи самым богатым человеком Италии в течение десятилетия. Несмотря на диагноз лейкемии, он до конца оставался активным в политике, будучи сенатором и партнером в правом правительстве премьер-министра Джорджии Мелони.
В 50 лет.
В августе 1984. Далее не переводил. Жалко на него время тратить. Был ли покойный нравственным человеком? Нет, он не был нравственным человеком.
Silvio Berlusconi, then an Italian television manager, and French businessman Jerome Seydoux joke together after a press conference, at Marigny theater in Paris
A young Silvio Berlusconi singing on a Cruise ship in the 1960s
Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2013 for paying for sex with Karima El-Mahroug (pictured), known as ‘Ruby the Heart Stealer’ – but this was later overturned by a judge
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A onetime cruise ship crooner, Berlusconi used his television networks and immense wealth to launch his long political career, inspiring both loyalty and loathing.
To admirers, the three-time premier was a capable and charismatic statesman who sought to elevate Italy on the world stage. To critics, the right-winger was a tax-evading playboy who used his vast media empire to further his political career, and then exploited his power to protect his business interests.
READ MORE: Italy’s scandal-hit former PM Silvio Berlusconi dead at 86
Despite remaining president of his Forza Italia party, a junior partner in Meloni’s coalition, he had largely retired from public view in recent months.
He suffered increasing health problems – although he maintained his pride in his appearance, always smartly dressed, his slicked-back hair never showing the slightest trace of grey.
Berlusconi was hospitalised for 11 days in September 2020 after contracting coronavirus, describing it as ‘perhaps the most difficult ordeal of my life’.
In April 2023, doctors revealed he was in intensive care suffering from leukaemia and a lung infection.
As Berlusconi aged, some derided his perpetual tan, hair transplants and live-in girlfriends who were decades younger. For many years, however, Berlusconi 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 he was victorious on appeal. Investigations targeted the tycoon’s steamy so-called ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties involving young women and minors, or his businesses, which included the soccer team AC Milan, the country’s three biggest private TV networks, magazines and a daily newspaper, and advertising and film companies.
Only one led to a conviction – a tax fraud case stemming from a sale of movie rights in his business empire. The conviction was upheld in 2013 by Italy’s top criminal court, but he was spared prison because of his age, 76, and was ordered to do community service by assisting Alzheimer’s patients.
AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi is shoulder-carried by Milan players after winning the 1988 Italian championship at Milan’s San Siro stadium
Silvio Berlusconi holds a press conference announcing his debut in politics at the foreign press conference room on November 26, 1993 in Rome, Italy
Silvio Berlusconi and Francesca Pascale in Ravello, at the wedding of her sister Marianna Pascale in Ravello, Italy, Oct 13, 2017
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 85, holds a ‘symbolic wedding’ to his 32-year-old MP bride Marta Fascina
Silvio Berlusconi, and his partner Marta Fascina arrive to cast their vote on September 25, 2022 at a polling station in Milan
Silvio Berlusconi and his then wife Veronica Lario in Rome, Italy, 24 May 2005
Berlusconi was still was stripped of his Senate seat and banned from running or holding public office for six years, under anti-corruption laws.
Timeline: Silvio Berlusconi’s life in key dates
Key dates in the life and career of Italy’s scandal-tainted former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose death was announced on Monday.
September 29, 1936: Born in Milan.
1961: Starts his real estate career, building residential districts on the outskirts of Milan.
1978: Founds the Fininvest holding company, comprising media, financial services, publishing and, from 1986 to 2017, the Milan AC football club.
1994: Creates that ‘Forza Italia’ (Go Italy) movement, which wins legislative elections, giving him his first stint as prime minister from May to December.
1996: Goes on trial for the first time on corruption charges and is sentenced to 16 months in prison for false accounting, but acquitted on appeal.
2001: Starts a second stint as prime minister after his right-wing alliance wins the general election, serving for five years.
2008: After a new electoral win, returns as prime minister until 2011, resigning in the midst of a national financial crisis that risks bringing down the entire eurozone.
2013: Sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud through his Mediaset media empire, and is stripped of his seat in the Senate. The sentence is commuted to one year of community service, which he serves in a home for Alzheimer’s patients.
2015: Acquitted on appeal after a 2013 conviction for paying for sex with a teenage prostitute and abuse of power in the ‘Rubygate’ or ‘Bunga Bunga’ affair.
2019: Wins a seat in the European Parliament, becoming the assembly’s oldest MEP at age 82.
2020: Spends 11 days in hospital with Covid-19, calling the experience ‘perhaps the most difficult ordeal’ of his life.
2022: Campaigns behind the scenes to become Italy’s president but withdraws before voting begins in parliament. In September’s general election he wins a seat in the Senate, making a triumphant return to politics.
February 2023: The ‘Bunga Bunga’ sex scandal comes to an end when an Italian court acquits him of charges.
April 5, 2023: Admitted to intensive care at a Milan hospital for heart problems. The next day, doctors announce he is suffering from leukaemia and a lung infection.
May 19: Discharged from hospital after more than six weeks of treatment, saying, ‘I won again’.
June 9: Hospitalised for what his doctors say are ‘routine checks’ related to his leukaemia.
June 12: Dies at San Raffaele hospital. He stayed at the helm of Forza Italia, the center-right party he created when he entered politics in the 1990s and named for a soccer cheer, ‘Let’s go, Italy.’ 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 political right: first by the League, led by anti-migrant populist Salvini, then by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, with its roots in neo-fascism. Following elections in 2022, Meloni formed a governing coalition with their help.
He suffered personal humiliations as well. Berlusconi lost his standing as Italy’s richest man, although his sprawling media holdings and luxury real estate still left him a billionaire several times over.
In 2013, guests at one of his parties included an under-age Moroccan dancer whom 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 denied having sex with each other, and he was eventually acquitted.
The 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, declaring: ‘I’m no saint.’
Berlusconi 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 premier.
His second term, from 2001-06, was perhaps his golden era, when he became Italy’s longest-serving head of government and boosted its global profile through his friendship with U.S. President George W. Bush. Bucking widespread sentiment at home and in Europe, Berlusconi backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
As a businessman who knew the power of images, Berlusconi introduced U.S.-style political campaigns – with big party conventions and slick advertising – that broke with the gray world of Italian politics, in which voters essentially chose parties and not candidates. His rivals had to adapt.
Berlusconi saw himself as Italy’s savior from what he described as the Communist menace – years after the Berlin Wall fell. From the start of his political career in 1994, he portrayed himself as the target of a judiciary he described as full of leftist sympathizers. He always proclaimed his innocence.
When the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement gained strength, Berlusconi branded it as a menace worse than Communism.
His close friendship with longtime Socialist leader and former Premier Bettino Craxi was widely credited for helping him become a media baron. Still, Berlusconi billed himself as a self-made man, saying, ‘My formula for success is to be found in four words: work, work and work.’
He boasted of his libido and entertained friends and world leaders at his villas. At one party, newspapers reported the women were dressed as ‘little Santas.’ At another, photos showed topless women and a naked man lounging poolside.
‘I love life! I love women!’ an unrepentant Berlusconi said in 2010.
He occasionally selected TV starlets for posts in his Forza Italia party. ‘If I weren’t married, I would marry you immediately,’ Berlusconi reportedly said in 2007 to Mara Carfagna, who later became a Cabinet minister. Berlusconi’s wife publicly demanded an apology.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi (L) greets Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a meeting in Sirte, 10 February, 2004
Pope Benedict XVI is escorted by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, right, as he leaves for his pastoral trip to the Czech Republic from Ciampino Military airport, near Rome
Then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, holds on to the arm of U.S. President George W. Bush, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, looks on at the G8 summit, July 8, 2008 in the lakeside resort of Toyako, Japan
Silvio Berlusconi smiles ahead of a confidence vote at he Senate for the new Government, in Rome, Oct. 26, 2022
Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Italian right party Forza Italia leaves the polling station on September 25, 2022 in Milan, Italy
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi listen to the national anthems during the welcoming ceremony at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on January 12, 2011
Berlusconi was nicknamed ‘Papi’ – or ‘Daddy’ – by an aspiring model whose 18th birthday bash he attended, also to his wife’s irritation. Later, self-described escort Patrizia D’Addario said she spent the night with him on the evening that Barack Obama was elected U.S. president in 2008.
READ MORE: How ultra-glamorous MP, 32, wooed Berlusconi with a series of letters and got a tattoo of his initials before they held a €400,000 ‘symbolic wedding’
From his cruise ship entertainer days, Berlusconi loved to compose and sing Neapolitan songs. Like millions of Italians, he had a passion for soccer, and often was in the stands at AC Milan.
He delighted in flouting political etiquette. He sported a bandanna when hosting British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his estate on the Emerald Coast of Sardinia, and it was later revealed he was concealing hair transplants. He posed for photos at international summits making an Italian gesture – which can be offensive or superstitious, depending on circumstances – in which the index and pinkie fingers are extended like horns.
He stirred anger after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States by claiming Western civilization was superior to Islam.
When criticised in 2003 at the European Parliament by a German lawmaker, Berlusconi likened his adversary to a concentration camp guard. Years later, he drew outrage when he compared his family’s legal woes to what Jews must have encountered in Nazi Germany.
Berlusconi was born in Milan on Sept. 29, 1936, the son of a middle-class banker. He earned a law degree, writing his thesis on advertising. He started a construction company at 25 and built apartment complexes for middle-class families on Milan’s outskirts, part of a postwar boom.
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 Mediaset accounted for about 90% of the national market in 2006.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi at Fiumicino airport in Rome early on July 5, 2019
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visit a memorial to the soldiers from Sardinia killed in the Crimean War, near Mount Gasfort outside Sevastopol in Crimea, Friday, Sept. 11, 2015
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) pictured in a gesture to stop shaking hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s (L) and US President George W. Bush’s at the NATO-Russia summit in Rome
US President George W. Bush (R) and first lady Laura Bush (L) wave as they greet Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) upon his arrival by helicopter at President Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford
AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi, left, holds an AC Milan shirt flanked by his daughter Barbara during a visit to the new team headquarters in Milan, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, left, and U.S. President Bush greet each other prior to a luncheon at the 2005 World Summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York
When the ‘Clean Hands’ corruption scandals of the 1990s decimated the political establishment that had dominated postwar Italy, Berlusconi filled the void, founding Forza Italia in 1994.
His first government in 1994 collapsed after eight months when an ally who led an anti-immigrant party yanked support. But aided by an aggressive campaign that included mass mailings of glossy magazines recounting his success story, Berlusconi swept to victory in 2001.
Shuffling his Cabinet occasionally, he stayed in power for five years, setting a record for government longevity in Italy. It wasn’t easy.
A Group of Eight summit he hosted in Genoa in 2001 was marred by violent anti-globalization demonstrations and the death of a protester shot by a police officer. Berlusconi faced fierce domestic opposition and alienated some allies by sending 3,000 troops to Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. For a time, Italy was the third-largest contingent in the U.S. coalition.
At home, he constantly faced accusations of sponsoring laws aimed at protecting himself or his businesses, but he insisted he always acted in the interest of all Italians. Legislation passed when he was premier allowing officeholders to own media businesses but not run them was deemed by his critics to be tailor made for Berlusconi.
AC Milan’s president Silvio Berlusconi (right) and Brazilian football star Ronaldo (left) arrive for the Champions League final football match against Liverpool at the Olympic Stadium, in Athens, on May 23, 2007
AC Milan former coach Arrigo Sacchi (left) AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi (second from right) and Franco Baresi, right, show the Intercontinental Cup as they arrive at the Milan Linate airport on December 1990
Tha players of AC Milan and Silvio Berlusconi celebrate after winning the Berlusconi Trophy during the match between AC Milan and Juventus FC at Giuseppe Meazza Stadium on August 21, 2011
AC Milan’s Silvio Berlusconi raises the trophy aloft as he stands with his team after they beat Liverpool 2-1 to win the Champions League at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, on May 23, 2007
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visiting Anitkabir, mausoleum of Turkish Republic’s Founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in Ankara, Turkey
Silvio Berlusconi leaves the San Raffaele hospital after a 45-day of hospitalization, in Milan, northern Italy, 19 May 2023
An admirer of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Berlusconi passed reforms that partially liberalized the labor and pension systems, among Europe’s most inflexible. He also was chummy with Putin, who stayed at his Sardinian estate, and he visited the Russian leader, notably going to Crimea after Moscow illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.
In 2006, as Italy was ridiculed as ‘the sick man of Europe,’ with its economy mired in zero growth and its budget deficit rising, Berlusconi narrowly lost the general election to center-left leader Romano Prodi, who had been president of the European Union Commission.
In 2008, he bounced back for what would be his final term as premier. It ended abruptly in 2011, when financial markets lost faith in his ability to keep Italy from succumbing to the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis. To the relief of economic powerhouse Germany, Berlusconi reluctantly stepped down.
Health concerns dogged him over the years. He underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 1997. In November 2006, he fainted during a speech, and the next month flew to the U.S., where he received a pacemaker at the Cleveland Clinic. He underwent more heart surgery in 2016.
During a political rally in 2009, a man threw a souvenir statuette of Milan’s cathedral at Berlusconi, fracturing his nose, cracking two teeth and cutting his lip.
Berlusconi was first married in 1965 to Carla Dall’Oglio, and their two children, Marina and Piersilvio, were groomed to hold top positions in his business empire. He married his second wife, Veronica Lario, in 1990, and they had three children, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi.
Silvio Berlusconi death: who will take over former Italian PM’s business empire?
Four-time Italian prime minister and billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who died on Monday at the age of 86, never publicly indicated who should lead his business empire after his death.
The future of his business interests will likely depend on how he has chosen to distribute his 61% stake in family holding company Fininvest between his five children from two marriages. His eldest daughter Marina is expected to play a prominent role.
THE ELDEST HEIRS
The eldest, Marina (born August 1966) and Pier Silvio (April 1969) have both been directly involved in running Berlusconi’s companies since soon after their father made his entry into Italian politics in the early 1990s.
Marina, who chairs Fininvest, has been overseeing publisher Mondadori while Pier Silvio has been in charge of the TV business which has long been the jewel in the family’s crown.
THREE YOUNGER CHILDREN
Barbara (July 1984), Eleonora (May 1986) and Luigi (September 1988), the children Berlusconi had with his second wife, have not had any such high-profile executive roles in the management of their father’s businesses.
Luigi assumed the task of representing his side of the family at Fininvest, where he is a board member, on the back of his focus on finance and wealth management.
SILVIO AS ‘THE GLUE’
People close to the family described Silvio Berlusconi as ‘the glue’ who kept his children united, despite their age range and differing attitudes and ambitions.
The big question is whether family unity can be maintained after Berlusconi’s departure and what impact that might have on the future of the TV business on which Berlusconi built his fortunes.
SLIMMING DOWN
In recent years Fininvest liquidated assets which it deemed no longer strategic, from European soccer champions AC Milan to stakes in biotech firm Molmed and Italian merchant bank Mediobanca
The family holding company has confirmed its commitment to its TV business MediaforEurope, supporting plans to grow in Europe to resist the U.S. streaming giants through M&A deals.
But it remains to be seen if this ambition will be sustained after the death of the founder.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12185163/The-astonishing-life-Silvio-Berlusconi.html
