Former Italian Prime Minister and business tycoon Silvio Berlusconi died Monday at the age of 86, closing curtains on a colorful, controversial life and political career.
The billionaire media mogul was admitted to a Milan hospital on Friday for what aides said were pre-planned tests related to his leukemia.
His admission came just three weeks after he was discharged following a six-week stay at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital, during which time doctors revealed he had a rare type of blood cancer.
Berlusconi had suffered ill health for years, from heart surgery in 2016 to a 2020 hospitalization for coronavirus. Despite being re-elected to the Senate last year, he was rarely seen in public.
But he remained the official head of his right-wing Forza Italia party, a junior – and occasionally troublesome – partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s coalition government.
