Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, businessman, and prime minister who dominated Italian public life for decades, has passed away at age 86.
The eccentric figure, who once compared himself to Jesus, served as Italy’s prime minister for the longest period of time but was also dogged by scandal.
Even after receiving a leukemia diagnosis, he continued to be involved in politics as a senator and a member of right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government.
Aside from his ownership of the AC Milan football club and his position as Italy’s richest man for a decade, Berlusconi also had a significant impact through his holdings in television, newspapers, and other media. He practically invented commercial television in Italy.
Berlusconi won over millions of Italians by portraying himself as a self-made guy who liked life and spoke his opinion, even to the point of disparaging other leaders, long before Donald Trump parlayed his financial success into a White House run.
However, his detractors saw the right-winger as a tax-dodging playboy who leveraged his enormous media empire to advance his political career before abusing his position of authority to advance his commercial interests.
He spent much of his life embroiled in legal action, and the cases around his notorious “Bunga Bunga” sex parties, attended by young girls including underage escorts, were only wrapped up in February 2023.
Even while he was still the leader of Meloni’s coalition’s junior partner, Forza Italia, he had mostly disappeared from public view in recent months.
Despite having worsening health issues, he continued to take pride in his appearance, always dressing sharply and never letting his slicked-back hair even hint at a hint of gray.
After acquiring coronavirus in September 2020, Berlusconi spent 11 days in the hospital, calling it “possibly the most trying ordeal of my life.”
He was diagnosed with leukemia and a lung infection in April 2023, according to the medical community. He was in intensive care.
Berlusconi burst onto the political scene in the early 1990s, after building up a media and real estate business, where he was viewed as a breath of fresh air after a period of corruption and scandal.
Pitching himself as a modern Italian success story, and backed by his TV stations and newspapers, he secured his first election victory in 1994 with his new movement, Forza Italia (Go Italy!), named after a football chant.
He lasted as prime minister for only nine months, but bounced back with another election win in 2001 after a populist campaign promising jobs and economic growth, signing a “Contract with Italians” live on television.
He served until 2006, and returned again as prime minister between 2008 and 2011, making him the longest-serving premier in Italy’s post-war history.
He was forced to quit as debt-laden Italy — the eurozone’s third largest economy — came under intense pressure during the financial crisis.
The tenure of the man dubbed “Il Cavaliere” (The Knight) divided Italians, as much as over his policies — including his controversial decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq — as his entire approach to life.
Throughout his time in office, prosecutors snapped at his heels, even as his supporters in parliament passed laws to shield him and his allies.
Despite multiple court cases — he claimed in 2021 he had gone through 86 trials — he never spent any time behind bars and successfully appealed convictions for fraud and corruption early in his political career.