Berlusconi’s heirs turn off the taps on payments to ‘Bunga-Bunga’ escorts

The Berlusconi family has decided to stop cash payments made to various female friends of the ex-prime minister and to demand the return of the houses occupied by the women involved in the various trials against him.

The death of Silvio Berlusconi left many in Italy bereaved that they had lost a great leader. But those who will feel more abandoned will be some of the female guests who entertained at the infamous Bunga-Bunga parties organised by Berlusconi during his time in politics and to whom the three-time prime minister had paid €2,500 a month.

Bunga Bunga

It was Berlusconi himself who revealed to prosecutors in 2013 that he paid €2,500 a month to each of the female guests at his Bung– Bunga parties, because of the damage to their reputations caused by media investigations and court proceedings. Some of them even lived for free in flats owned by him.

In total, some 20 women benefited from some kind of reward in return for having been involved in legal proceedings. They have since been known as the so-called olgettine, (best translated in English as “escorts”).

One of them was 45-year-old Barbara Guerra, one of the main witnesses in the case, who after her acquittal declared that as a result of the scandal her television career had been completely destroyed. “Silvio never spoke out to say that I was a decent girl,” she said to the Corriere della Sera newspaper at the time.

Now, with Berlusconi’s death, the contract on a flat near the city of Monza where she lives is coming to an end and she will have to leave the house at the end of the year, according to the Italian press. However, she denied she would have to leave, saying, “It is not true that now that he is dead I have to leave the flat. Silvio gave me the house. Why should I leave it?”

Berlusconi’s will

The former Prime Minister died in June at the age of 86, and left the 5 children he had from his 2 marriages as the heirs to his empire. Now, with the patriarch gone, the family has decided to “turn off the tap” on payments and evict the women concerned from the properties they have used rent-free for many years.

The heirs say that the homes have to be vacated by the end of the year 2 of the escorts, Alessandra Sorcinelli and Barbara Guerra, have engaged lawyers to overturn the decision saying that Berlusconi intended them to have the properties as a thank you for sticking by him.