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Wife of Italy’s Berlusconi seeking divorce

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's second wife, former actress Veronica Lario, is seeking a divorce after 19 years of marriage, citing his reported flirtations with younger women.
ITALY BERLUSCONI'S WIFE
Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, right, and his wife, Veronica Lario, shown in 2004. Two Italian newspapers report that Lario has retained a divorce attorney to begin the process of legal separation and divorce.Susan Walsh / AP
/ Source: The Associated Press

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's second wife, former actress Veronica Lario, is seeking a divorce after 19 years of marriage, citing his reported flirtations with younger women.

Lario confirmed reports Sunday in La Stampa and La Repubblica dailies that she had retained an attorney to begin separation and divorce proceedings against the billionaire media mogul-turned-politician, the ANSA news agency said.

"I was forced to take this step," La Stampa quoted Lario as saying in its Sunday editions.

Berlusconi issued a one-line statement saying: "It's a personal issue that pains me, that is in the private sphere, and which seems necessary not to speak about."

Last week, Lario had publicly voiced outrage over reports that Berlusconi's political party was lining up TV showgirls and starlets as European Parliament candidates.

"The impudence and shamelessness of power offends the credibility of all (women), damages women in general and especially those who have always struggled to defend their rights," Lario had said in a statement to ANSA.

She also lashed out at the premier's reported attendance of an 18-year-old's birthday party in Naples, saying she was surprised "because he never came to the 18th of any of his children, even though he was invited," according to ANSA.

Husband's reported flirtations
It wasn't the first time the unusually private Lario has publicly complained about her husband's reported flirtations.

Two years ago, Lario received a quick and public apology from Berlusconi when she wrote an open letter to Repubblica — a left-leaning paper fiercely critical of the premiere — complaining about her husband's telling TV starlet Mara Carfagna: "If I weren't married, I would marry you immediately."

Carfagna is now Berlusconi's minister for equal opportunities.

Lario and Berlusconi met in 1980, wed 10 years later and have three children in their 20s. Berlusconi has two children from his first marriage.

His union with Lario has long been rumored to be in trouble — the two don't live together.

But he has been quick to respond to her recent criticism.

He said the reported plans to turn actresses and models into European parliamentarians were a fabrication of the opposition and left-leaning media. When the official list of candidates was presented Wednesday, one of the reported names — a former Miss Italy contestant — was included, though some other names that had circulated were not.

He said about his attendance at the 18-year-old's birthday party that she was a friend's daughter, and that since he happened to be in Naples, he quickly dropped by "to raise a glass."

Love at first sight?
Berlusconi often has said it was love at first sight when he saw Lario, then a 24-year-old actress, performing at a Milan theater in 1980.

"When we met, she made me lose my mind," he once told the women's magazine A. "She's a special woman. ... She has been and is a wonderful mother. She has never embarrassed me, never."

Lario has largely shied from her role as first lady, both during his current term as premier and when he held the post in 2001-06. But she occasionally broke her public silence with stances that suggested an independent-minded personality. In one case, she defended pacifists protesting the Iraq war, which Berlusconi supported.

In 2003, Berlusconi acknowledged rumors linking his wife to a left-leaning philosophy professor, Massimo Cacciari, during a news conference with the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"Rasmussen is the most handsome prime minister in Europe," Berlusconi said then to the surprise of his Danish counterpart and reporters alike. "I'm thinking of introducing him to my wife because he's much more handsome than Cacciari."

The comments were said to have angered Lario at the time.