Silvio Berlusconi died at the age of 86, a victim of leukemia that he had suffered for a long time. The weakness for women that he was Prime Minister of Italy on three occasions marked his private life, but also his political career.
As controversial and eccentric as it is powerful and incombustible, Silvio Berlusconi, who died today at the age of 86, a victim of leukemia, has marked an era in Italian politics. But his private life, and his relationships with women, grabbed almost as many front pages and headlines as his political activity as Italy's prime minister, a post he held three times.
Married twice (and divorced as many times), father of five children, and grandfather of 15 grandchildren, he was singled out for his participation in the famous Bunga-Bunga parties and for his countless extramarital affairs and since 2020 he shared his life with the Italian politician Marta Antonia Fascinates, 53 years younger than him.
He met her first wife, Carla Elvira Lucia Dall'Oglio, at the tram stop next to Milan Central Station. It was, he recounted years later, love at first sight. They married in 1965 and had two children: Marina and Pier Silvio. After almost 20 years together, they signed the divorce papers in 1985.
Veronica Lario, the actress who became the first lady of Italy
Silvio had fallen in love with an actress whom he had seen acting in a theater in Milan. She was Verónica Lario. Their first daughter together (later they had two more) was born while Berlusconi was still married to his first wife. Discreet and allergic to photos, after the separation Dall'Oglio moved to England and never gave an interview.
Together with Veronica Lario, whom he married in 1990 despite being 20 years younger than him, Berlusconi enjoyed the boom of the 1990s: from his television omnipotence, as a powerful Mediaset magnate, until his coming to power in 1994. Although rumors about the politician's dalliances were vox populi (relationships have been attributed to him with the actress and model Francesca Dellera, but also with the politicians Daniela Santanché or Mara Carfagna) the marriage survived the rumors until 2007.
That year, Veronica Lario sent a historic letter to the newspaper La Repubblica (little suspected of sympathizing with Berlusconi) in which she invited her husband to apologize publicly for the comments he had made to several women during a television program. Although it was evident that the marriage was going through a crisis, it was not until 2009 that everything exploded. When it was learned that the then prime minister had attended the birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a girl of just 18 years old, her wife filed for divorce, which would later result in a multimillion-dollar settlement for her.
The last two official girlfriends of Silvio Berlusconi
Shortly after, came the sc@nd@l of the Bunga Bunga festivities in Villa Certosa, the Ruby case (which uncovered his relationship with a minor of Moroccan origin Karima El-Mahroug), his sentence to seven years in prison for prostitution of minors with abuse from power in 2013 and his subsequent acquittal in 2015.
Despite such a file, there were other official girlfriends. Like the television presenter Francesca Pascale, whom he met in 2011 when she was the president of one of her fan clubs and with whom he began to live shortly after. They separated in 2020 and, a few months later, Pascale began a relationship with the singer Paola Turci.
The last woman in Silvio Berlusconi's life has been Marta Antonia Fascina, deputy for Calabria of Forza Italia, the political formation founded by the former premier in 2013, and 53 years younger than the politician. With her, she passed her confinement, and together with her, he represented himself in the elections in 2022, refusing to leave the first political line. Reserved and elusive with the press, Fascina has also been the person who has been by her side during the illness and who has accompanied the Italian politician in his last hours.
