JOIN US“Certainly he knew that I was an escort,” Patrizia D’Addario said on a nationally televised programme on state broadcaster RAI late on Thursday night. RAI said some 7.3 million people watched the show.
Berlusconi, 73, has not denied spending the night with the 42-year-old D’Addario but she directly contradicted his previous statements that he did not know that she or any of the other women who attended his parties were high-class prostitutes. “Even the other girls knew that I was to stay there that night. Everyone knew that I was an escort,” she said.
Berlusconi spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said the show’s assertions were built around “gossip and peeping through a keyhole”. D’Addario taped explicit conversations with Berlusconi on her cellphone and went public when, she says, promises like business favours and even a European Parliament seat went unfulfilled.
She said the first time she went to a party at the premier’s Rome residence she declined to stay the night and got paid 1,000 euros instead of the 2,000 Tarantini had promised. The second time, she stayed. She described the atmosphere at the parties as “like a harem”.