Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving prime minister, had suffered from leukemia and recently developed a lung infection.
Silvio Berlusconi, the controversial former Italian prime minister, media mogul and soccer club owner has passed away at 86.
Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving premier, had suffered from leukemia and recently developed a lung infection.
The self-made billionaire politician redefined Italian politics and counted controversial figures like Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, and current Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni as friends.
Berlusconi died at Milan's San Raffaele hospital, where he was admitted on Friday, according to Reuters.
Four of his five children as well as his brother Paolo were at his bedside, ANSA reported shortly before his death was announced.
A state funeral will be held in Milan on Wednesday, according to reports.
Berlusconi created a real estate and media empire which made him one of the country’s wealthiest men.
In 1986, he purchased historic soccer club AC Milan and turned it into a European powerhouse, winning three Champions Leagues, eight Serie A titles and a Coppa Italia during his ownership before selling the club in 2017. During his reign as owner of Italy’s most successful club in Europe, Berlusconi became part of the public eye and used his power to showcase that if he could take a club in need of help and repair like AC Milan, he could do the same for the nation as a whole.
Following his passing, Milan tweeted highlight videos of their former boss.
He formed the “Forza Italia” party, which translates to “Go Italy” or “Strength Italy,” and used as a soccer metaphor to raise support from voters.
He was prime minister three times in 1994-1995, 2001-2006 and 2008-2011. He stepped down in 2011, as the country’s debt crisis was spiraling out of control.
A decade ago, he was banned from holding public office over a tax fraud conviction stemming from dealings in his media empire. However, the ban was lifted in 2018.
He returned to the Italian Senate after a national election last September.
Yet, while in and out of office, he never kept a low profile.
He was a scandal-hit prime minister famous for his notorious "bunga bunga" parties. The sex parties, which involved prostitutes, where magistrates say he paid thousands of euros for sex with Moroccan-born nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, whose alias was "Ruby the Heart Stealer,” when she was underage in 2010, according to SKY.
He denied this but admitted springing her from a police station by falsely claiming she was the niece of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A court eventually acquitted him of having sex with a youth, saying he didn't know she was under 18.
Berlusconi then would return to the soccer world with the purchase of Monza in 2018, where he took the club from second-tier Italian soccer known as Serie B to topflight football in Serie A in just a few short years.
Even during his reign as owner of Monza in his old age, he stirred controversy after he was captured on video offering his players a “bus full of wh***s” if they were to beat Italian giants like Juventus, AC Milan or Inter Milan in 2022.
Berlusconi would claim that he was joking around with his players.
In recent months he had been in and out of the hospital where he was treated for a lung infection linked to chronic leukemia, which is ultimately what took his life.
Many politicians, footballers and high-profile figures around the world have paid tribute to one of Italy’s most controversial figures on social media. However, it was Italian newspaper La República that staunchly opposed Berlusconi in politics and his views, expressing the international collective by saying, “The End of an Era” on their Monday headline.
