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| - Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a larger-than-life personality whose scandal-plagued career has defied the usual rules of politics, faces a fight with coronavirus just shy of his 84th birthday. "I will continue to battle," the media tycoon said on Wednesday, the day before he was admitted to a Milan hospital as a "precautionary measure." Although Berlusconi no longer holds any elected position in Italy, he remains a powerful figure thanks to his sprawling business empire and his hold over his influential Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party. The twice-divorced conservative was prime minister three times in a political career which began with an election victory in 1994 and was underpinned by the backing of his TV stations and newspapers. With his oiled-back hair and broad smile, he ruled Italy for more than nine years in all during which he built friendships abroad with figures including Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Internationally, he is best known for his buffoonish gaffes -- in 2008 he said Barack Obama was young, handsome and "tanned" -- his "bunga bunga" sex parties, and his decades-long battle with Italian prosecutors over corruption allegations. His playboy lifestyle again hit global headlines earlier this year when he reportedly dumped his longtime girlfriend for a woman 53 years his junior. Berlusconi has known many ups and downs, but he prides himself on bouncing back. He was forced out of parliament in 2013 after his conviction for corporate tax fraud was upheld by Italy's highest court. He said at the time he would not "retire to some convent". In 2015 he was convicted of paying a senator a three million euro ($3.4 million) bribe to quit the fragile centre-left coalition that governed Italy between 2006 and 2008. Berlusconi's last term as prime minister ended in 2011 in a blaze of sex scandals and fears Italy was on the brink of a Greek-style financial implosion. He nearly mounted a comeback two years later, winning almost a third of the vote with an energetic campaign that, as ever, played up his reputation as a winner -- on the football pitch and in the boardroom. But the man the Italian press dubbed "the knight" was always being pursued by prosecutors. In June 2013 he was sentenced to seven years for paying for sex with an underage 17-year-old prostitute Karima El-Mahroug, known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer", and for abusing the powers of the prime minister's office with his efforts to get her off theft charges -- which included pretending she was the daughter of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The Ruby conviction was eventually overturned when an appeal court judge ruled that there was reasonable doubt as to whether Berlusconi knew she was a minor. Berlusconi was born in 1936 in Milan to a bank employee father and a housewife mother who always staunchly defended her son's virtues. The young Berlusconi was a born entertainer. A huge fan of Nat King Cole, he played double bass and entertained club audiences with jokes during breaks from studying law. He worked briefly as a cruise-ship crooner before launching a lucrative career in the booming construction sector and then expanding to set up three national television channels and buy AC Milan. He sold the famous club in 2017 to Chinese investors for a reported sum of 740 million euros. Berlusconi's political success was linked to his football glory. But it was also closely entwined with the power of his broadcasting and publishing empire. His first stint as prime minister lasted from 1994-1996. In 2001, he was elected again after a campaign which included sending a book boasting of his achievements to 15 million Italian homes. The media magnate remained in power until 2006 -- the longest premiership in the history of post-war Italy -- and as a divided left floundered, he was voted back in for a third time in 2008. A father of five children from two marriages and several-times grandfather earlier this year dumped Francesca Pascale, his girlfriend for 12 years for the 30-year-old Marta Fascina. In the spring of 2019, he was operated on for an intestinal obstruction at the same Milan facility where he was being treated for Covid-19 and where he underwent open-heart surgery in 2016. bur-jhe-cco/adp
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