ROME — Facing a growing wave of criticism about his personal life, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi went on the defensive this week, saying that he did not recall meeting a woman who claims he paid her to spend the night at his Rome residence.
In an exclusive interview to be published Wednesday in Chi magazine, which Mr. Berlusconi owns and which is Italy’s equivalent of People, he was asked if he had ever paid a woman “so she would be with him.”
“Naturally, no,” he responded. “I have never understood what satisfaction there is if not in the pleasure of conquest.”
“There is nothing in my private life for which I should apologize,” Mr. Berlusconi added, according to a copy of the interview sent by the magazine to reporters on Tuesday in an e-mail message.
Mr. Berlusconi, 72, has been under fire over the past several months, when his wife accused him of consorting with very young women, including one whose 18th-birthday party he attended in Naples in April.
Speculation about the nature of Mr. Berlusconi’s relationship with the 18-year-old, Noemi Letizia, dominated the national conversation before elections for the European Parliament this month, which the prime minister’s center-right coalition won, though with a smaller margin than anticipated.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/europe/24italy.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=BERLUSCONI&st=cse
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