Silvio Berlusconi: Vacuum cleaner salesman, cruise ship singer, media mogul - how former Italian PM will be remembered as one of Europe’s most controversial leaders

Silvio Berlusconi will be remembered as one of Europe’s most controversial and colourful leaders

He was a former vacuum cleaner salesman, cruise ship singer and property tycoon, before segueing into the media business, football club ownership and ultimately politics.

A controversial and colourful character, allies and friends of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi have said they are “broken” by his death, which they claim will leave a “huge void”.

Having somehow successfully navigated his way through sex scandals, tax fraud charges and his notorious “bunga bunga” parties, Mr Berlusconi, who died at the age of 86 on Monday, was an unusually constant face in Italian politics during a period when Rome saw a new government an average of once every 13 months.

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi gestures as he takes part at the meeting of young people of PDL (People of Freedom), in central Rome. Picture: Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images

He recently returned to the Senate following a general election in September, almost a decade after he was barred from public office following a tax fraud conviction. He first came to office in 1994 and led four governments over the next 17 years. It made him the longest serving post-war prime minister of Italy, and the third longest-serving since Italian unification, after Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti.

A conservative prime minister, his party, Forza Italia, is in coalition with that of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, who paid tribute to her predecessor as a "fighter" and "one of the most influential men in the history of Italy".

Divorced twice and with a number of high-profile relationships behind him, Mr Berlusconi was well known for his complicated personal life. He had an unwavering confidence that never seemed to be dented – by political or personal scandal or for being publicly vilified for a series of racist, sexist or rude remarks.

"The majority of Italians in their hearts would love to be like me and see themselves in me and in how I behave," he famously once said.

Mr Berlusconi once came under fire for describing US president Barack Obama as “young, handsome and tanned” and made unpleasant remarks about German president Angela Merkel’s appearance. He also claimed it was “better to be fond of beautiful girls than to be gay" and compared a German politician to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Berlusconi has been criticised for a long-standing close relationship with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he hosted in his Sardinian villa.

Last year, a secretly recorded tape revealed he blamed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for forcing President Putin to invade Ukraine. He also mentioned a “sweet letter” and a gift of 20 bottles of vodka he received for his 86th birthday from Mr Putin, with whom he said he had “reconnected a little bit”.

His leadership came to a messy end following a close victory in a vote of no confidence in 2011 after his budget was rejected in parliament – at a time when he was embroiled in legal battles over corruption, fraud and sex offences. Italy was mired in a deep debt crisis, which Mr Berlusconi was not regarded as having handled well. He handed in his resignation in November 2011, but over the next few years, accused international leaders of having forced him to do so.

However, he acknowledged his Marmite popularity when he admitted “50 per cent of Italians hate me, 50 per cent love me”.

Evidence of his "bunga bunga” parties held at his Arcore villa, near Milan, came to light in 2010 after Mr Berlusconi personally phoned a police station in a bid to secure the release of a 17-year-old Moroccan girl, Karima El Mahroug, who had been arrested in Milan on suspicion of jewel theft.

While he claimed the girl was a relative of the Egyptian prime minister and warned her arrest could cause a diplomatic incident, it turned out she was actually a belly dancer who went by the name of Ruby Rubacuori. She told prosecutors Mr Berlusconi held parties at his home where girls performed a “bunga bunga” dance.

He was initially convicted of paying Ms Mahroug for sexual services while she was under the age of 18. But the verdict was overturned on appeal – one of a number of occasions he avoided jail. In a nod to George Orwell's Animal Farm, Mr Berlusconi famously said his was “a little more equal than the others” in the eyes of the law due to his political status.

His move into politics came in the 1990s, when corruption scandals had left the Italian government in tatters.

Before that, he had set up his own media company, TeleMilano, to supply cable TV to an apartment complex he had built on the edge of Milan. However, it soon grew into a wide-ranging business of television networks, publishing companies and advertising agencies.

In 1986, Mr Berlusconi rescued football club AC Milan from bankruptcy, but sold the club in 2017 for 740 million euros (£630m) after winning three Champions Leagues, eight Serie A titles and a Coppa Italia. In a statement entitled “Silvio forever", the club described Mr Berlusconi as the “Presidentissimo of Italian football”.

"He was a president full of life, with AC Milan at heart,” the statement said. “The Rossoneri fans loved him, his sporting opponents respected him. Silvio Berlusconi and his helicopter, Silvio Berlusconi and his vision.”

The former prime minister had suffered health problems since contracting Covid in 2020 and had undergone open heart surgery in 2016. In April, it emerged Mr Berlusconi had been suffering from a rare form of blood cancer, chronic myelomonocyte leukaemia.

However, although he was taken into hospital in Milan two days ago, a statement from his medical team insisted it was not related to “any criticality or alarm” and was for standard checks.