JOIN USDaughter 'amazed' at Berlusconi's links with teenager
The interview is the first given by any of Berlusconi’s children since the first of the scandals broke when his second wife, Veronica Lario, announced in May that she intended to file for divorce. At almost the same time, it was reported that the prime minister had attended the 18th birthday party of an aspiring actor and model, Noemi Letizia.
“I was amazed,” Barbara Berlusconi said in an interview to Italian edition of Vanity Fair, adding that public officials should enhance moral values and that they cannot make “a distinction between their public and private life.”
Asked about the links between her father and Letizia, Barbara, the eldest child of Berlusconi’s second marriage, said: “My story is that of a girl who lived her youth in a normal and tranquil fashion. I never frequented old men. These are psychological links of which I have no experience.”
Barbara, 25, who has two children and is unmarried, said of her parents’ marriage problems: “I want to be close to both my parents, because what does not come out is that their suffering is profound and touches them both.”
Asked whether her parents’ break-up signalled the end of a great love, she told the magazine: “I am sure that it was for mamma. But certainly in 30 years of life together, they have always had their mutual good at heart.”
Asked about the contrast between the prime minister’s conduct and his enduring popularity, she said: “I think that a society expresses a common sense of morality.
Political representatives, who are expected to govern well, and make the community prosper, are also expected to safeguard the values that the community expresses, possibly to raise them. I do not believe therefore that a politician can permit himself a distinction between public life and private life.”