Italian Leader’s 'harem'

ON the night of Barack Obama’s election as US president last November, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, threw a candlelit dinner party for three beautiful women at Palazzo Grazioli, his luxurious residence in Rome.

One of the guests, a former actress and escort girl called Patrizia D’Addario, 42, says he then asked her to stay the night. Not only that, but she claims to have taped the conversation that followed.

“Go and wait for me in the big bed,” the 72-year-old billionaire is said to have told her. He was going to have a shower and change into a bathrobe.

An extract from D’Addario’s tape that was leaked to an Italian newspaper and published yesterday shows that she replied: “Yes, the big bed.”

According to D’Addario, Berlusconi’s staff reminded him that he was expected at an election night rally organised by the Italy-USA Foundation, but the prime minister stayed at home. Officials informed him later of Obama’s victory. More