Berlusconi punished publicly for 'flirtations'

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s wife aired her dirty laundry for the whole country to see when she complained about her husband in a newspaper.

Veronica Lario, the usually private wife of Berlusconi, apparently had had enough of his flirtations with other women, and she chose to make her anger public yesterday by writing an open letter to La Repubblica, a newspaper run by his political opponents, and saying his behaviour had damaged “my dignity”.

By the end of the day, the 70-year-old media billionaire was figuratively on his knees.

The rare public remarks by Lario brought new attention to a marriage that has lasted 17 years but has been long rumoured to be in trouble, and made headlines in a nation that typically keeps clear of politicians’ private lives.

“Dear Veronica, here’s my apology,” Berlusconi said in his response, made public by the conservative leader’s Forza Italia party.

“Forgive me, I beg you, and take this public show of my private pride giving into your fury as an act of love. One of many.”

Lario voiced her complaints in an open letter to Italian daily La Repubblica, saying her dignity had been offended by her husband’s behaviour. Adding insult to injury, Lario chose a left-leaning newspaper that is a fierce Berlusconi critic.

Lario was reacting to comments that Berlusconi reportedly made last week during a VIP party after a TV awards show broadcast by one of the media baron’s Mediaset channels.

“If I weren’t married, I would marry you immediately,” the 70-year-old Berlusconi told one woman, according to reports widely carried in the Italian press. “With you, I’d go anywhere,” he reportedly told another.

“I see these statements as damaging my dignity,” Lario wrote. “To both my husband and the public man, I therefore demand a public apology since I haven’t received any privately.”

“I have faced the conflicts and painful moments of a long conjugal relationship with respect and discretion,” the 50-year old said. “Now I write to state my reaction,” Lario said, calling her husband’s comments “unacceptable” and saying they could not be written off as mere jokes.

Berlusconi is not new to making remarks that some women find inappropriate.

In 2005, when he was premier, Berlusconi joked that he had to use “all my playboy skills” to convince Finnish President Tarja Halonen, a woman, that the European Union food agency should be assigned to Italy, not Finland.

He likes to recall his success with ladies when he was a young man, and to show off what he says is his sense of gallantry.

Citing the demands of his busy life combined with his “playful, self-ironic and sometimes irreverent personality”, Berlusconi admitted in his letter that he had been “a bit irresponsible”.

“My days are incredible, you know: work, politics, troubles, moving around, public exams that never end, a life under constant pressure,” he wrote.

“But your dignity has nothing to do with it. I treasure it as a precious good in my heart, even when I make carefree jokes, a gallant remark,” he wrote. “Believe me, I’ve never made marriage proposals to anybody.”

Berlusconi and Lario, a former actress, were married in 1990, but had been together for a decade.

She is Berlusconi’s second wife, and the couple have three children.

Berlusconi often has said it was love at first sight when he saw Lario, then a 24-year-old actress, performing at a Milan theatre in 1980.

“When we met, she made me lose my mind,” he said in a separate interview with women’s magazine A, which released excerpts yesterday.

“She’s a special woman,” said Berlusconi. “She has been and is a wonderful mother. She has never embarrassed me, never.”

When her husband was premier between 2001 and 2006, Lario largely shied away from her role of first lady and occasionally broke her public silence with stances that suggested an independent-minded personality.

In one case, she defended pacifists protesting the war in Iraq, which Berlusconi supported.

Even if the couple is rarely seen together, their marriage has come into the spotlight before.

In 2003, it was the flamboyant billionaire to raise the matter when he acknowledged rumours linking his wife to a left-leaning philosophy professor, Massimo Cacciari, during a news conference with the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“Rasmussen is the most handsome prime minister in Europe,” Berlusconi said then to the surprise of his Danish counterpart and reporters alike. “I’m thinking of introducing him to my wife because he's much more handsome than Cacciari.”

The comments were said to have angered Lario at the time.