Spotlight: Silvio Berlusconi

When the G-8 summit begins in Italy on July 8, it will undoubtedly garner a flood of attention for its host. But while Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was planning to bask in the results of his bold, last-minute decision to switch the site of the meeting from La Maddalena on Sardinia to L'Aquila, the central city still reeling from April's deadly earthquake, it is the stories of Berlusconi as a party guy that are capturing the imagination.

Since April, the coverage of the 72-year-old billionaire mogul turned 
 politico has read like something between an airport romance novel and soft porn. On April 26, Berlusconi showed up at the 18th birthday party of leggy Neapolitan blond Noemi Letizia with the gift of a diamond necklace. Within two days, Berlusconi's wife of 20 years, Veronica Lario, announced she wanted a divorce, claiming that her husband "frequents underage females." (See Berlusconi's Worst Gaffes.)

The subsequent media storm has rained an almost daily shower of gossipy tales upon the Italian public. On June 5, Spanish daily El Pais published photographs that showed topless women and a nude man partying at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa. And then there was the investigation, later dropped, into allegations that he'd used a government airplane to fly in young women and showbiz performers for private functions.

But the latest Berlusconi tidbit is potentially the most damaging. On June 17, investigators in the southern city of Bari confirmed they were carrying out a criminal investigation into allegations that businessman Giampaolo Tarantini had hired prostitutes to attend several Berlusconi bashes, although Berlusconi himself is not under investigation.

On June 17, one of the women, Patrizia D'Addario, told the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that she was paid several thousand euros to attend two dinner parties at Berlusconi's Rome residence last fall and that she stayed the night of Nov. 4. She says she secretly made audio recordings during the parties, which she turned over to prosecutors. Two days later, a friend of D'Addario's, Barbara Montereale, told newspaper La Repubblica that she, too, was paid to attend the 
 Nov. 4 party, but left after dinner. Montereale described her friend as a professional escort and said D'Addario had told her she'd had sex with Berlusconi at the party. In interviews since, D'Addario has neither confirmed nor denied Montereale's account. Tarantini told Italian news agency ANSA that he only reimbursed the women for their travel and expenses, and that Berlusconi didn't know about the payments.

Berlusconi says he has done nothing wrong and is simply a victim of a hate-filled press and opposition that want 
 to bring him down with "trash" and 
 "gossip." It's possible, if the investigation into the prostitution allegations came to any embarrassing conclusions, that Berlusconi might have to step down, opening the way for a caretaker government headed by someone like Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi or Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti. But don't count Berlusconi out yet. Perennial challengers like parliament Speaker Gianfranco Fini on the right and former Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema on the left, have largely lost credibility in the face of their opponent's political savvy. Italian politics is beginning to look like a season of Celebrity Survivor. And not only is Berlusconi the reigning champion of this reality show, he is also its executive producer.

Read "Berlusconi in Crisis After Allegation of Affair"