Berlusconi ‘slept with prostitute in return for help with inn’

THE prostitute at the centre of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s sex scandal claims in a new book that she slept with him on the understanding he would help her set up a countryside inn but she got “nothing” in return.

Patrizia D’Addario, whose memoir went on sale yesterday in Italy, writes she feels betrayed and has been frightened by strange threats, including the ransacking of her home, since she revealed this year that she had taped-recorded her purported bedroom encounter with Berlusconi.

In Gradisca, Presidente, (At Your Pleasure, Premier), D’Addario elaborates on her earlier accounts of the night she spent with Berlusconi in his Rome residence.

The conservative leader has said he has never paid for sex and is the victim of someone seeking to create a scandal.

D’Addario says she gave Berlusconi her body hoping he would help her open a countryside inn in southern Italy, where she was raised.

In the book she documents how her efforts to open the hotel had been stymied over the years by Italy’s bureaucracy.

The 73-year-old media mogul’s wife, Veronica Lario, said last spring she is divorcing Berlusconi for what she called his infatuation with young women.

“(Berlusconi) didn’t pay me. It wasn’t money he had to give me, he promised me something else,” D’Addario writes. “I gave him my body, he [gave me] nothing.”

A left-leaning newsweekly L’Espresso obtained what it said were the tapes made by D’Addario. In the tapes, a man identified as Berlusconi is heard telling the woman to wait for him on the big bed while he showers.

In the memoir, which stretches back to an unhappy childhood, D’Addario writes that since she revealed that she had made a tape recording of the encounter, she has been the subject of threats, aggression and other “strange episodes,” including the ransacking of her home.

“They take away everything, from panties to dresses, from stockings to bras, from jewellery to shoes, from CDs to my diaries, to my address book, the computer. They only leave me a very expensive TV,” D’Addario writes.

“Now I am really frightened,” D’Addario writes.

She says she reported the theft to local police.

Meanwhile, the Italian edition of Rolling Stone has named Berlusconi its “rock star of the year,” paying tribute to his “lifestyle worthy of the greatest rock star.”

An illustration of a smiling Berlusconi, emblazons the cover of the Rolling Stone’s December issue, against the backdrop of the Italian flag.

Carlo Antonelli, editor of Rolling Stone Italy, said the 73-year-old media mogul had been chosen unanimously by the magazine’s editorial staff.

“This year the choice was unanimous, for his obvious merits due to a lifestyle for which the words ‘rock and roll’ fall short,” Antonelli said.

“Rod Stewart, Brian Jones, Keith Richards in their prime were schoolboys compared to him.”

It has been a turbulent year for billionaire Berlusconi after photographs emerged of Berlusconi attending the 18th birthday party of aspiring model Noemi Letizia.

Berlusconi, who had told his wife he was going to a conference, has denied any “steamy affair”.

Italy was subsequently convulsed when call girl D’Addario in July alleged she had been paid to attend a party at Berlusconi’s Rome mansion and had slept with him.

The prime minister has not directly commented but has publicly acknowledged he is “no saint”.

The scandals made front page news around the globe, but had only a moderate impact on Berlusconi’s robust popularity ratings in Italy.

Antonelli denied that his magazine had any political agenda behind its choice.

“We are far from favouring left or right... Berlusconi’s daily behaviour, his furious vitality, his inimitable lifestyle have given him, especially this year, incredible international popularity,” he said.