The obsession with Veronica Lario, Berlusconi's second wife, arose in the 1980s, an era of – as has been said a million times – hedonism, in which being filthy rich was not a sin or, above all, a threat, but rather a role model to strive for . Not that that isn't still the case, the gurus' pages on Instagram about how to become the best version of yourself (=make money) are enough to say it, but it comes from the casual wear of Musk and Zuckerberg and this sense of unrest that they transfer to Berlusconi's double-breasted jacket, then only His Radio, owner of three television channels, the most successful AC Milan of all time, houses and residential areas. “Someone as rich as Berlusconi cannot be unpleasant,” Jovanotti (?) wrote in 1989 Yo! We are or we are not a good movement, an instant book written by who knows who would make an influencer today. At that moment, Lario was already his partner and soon his wife, a honeyed marriage that testifies to how Berlusconi lived and always had lived in an eternal time of apples.
The highlight of this season was in 1994, when Forza Italia won the elections in a few months and he became Prime Minister, which showed that many people thought like Jovanotti (who, however, had now wandered “between Che Guevara and Mother Teresa”). “, just to be fair). Lario is still there, still enthusiastic (“They say of a voluptuous woman that she is 'a lot'. Well, my husband is 'a lot'”), even if the high prelates of communication at Fininvest are already working closely on the transformation. It is becoming an object that is good for a certain type of political and family narrative, precisely the one in which love always wins: a vote gain, that's all.
In the prospectus An Italian storythat millions of Italians will be at home in the 2001 elections, Berlusconi will talk to her about love at first sight – twenty years younger, met in 1980 after a show at the Manzoni Theater, which he owned and in which she starred – and about it , how their initially secret and then official relationship had transformed his marriage to his first wife into a “sincere friendship.” Luckily, she didn't have the privilege of obsession: she didn't have time. Between them, three children (plus the first two) and the impression that Lario fits in: beautiful and not even an ornament, she fits in for a while with the value system of her husband's world where dreams are sold; a dream woman, a dream wedding, a dream life. If they did it, we can do it too: the importance of Forza Italia's first election campaign is clear. Then, at a certain point, she too shows signs of impatience.
That's more or less what he's going to talk about tonight Dinner with Maria Latella, the talk that airs on Sky TG24 at 9pm. Like: “I never thought of finding my own place in Berlusconi's living room.” I was there because I respect a role, I tried to do it as well as I could, and for me that meant taking a step back “; or that “I went from being an “ungrateful showgirl” to the Milan court that denied me all my rights,” referring to how the judiciary withdrew her husband’s maintenance allowance in 2017, and on the other hand, “this is a difficult” fight against power and the press, especially when the press is out for power.
Yes, because their relationship obviously turned into a war at some point, and not just because they first separated (2009) and then divorced (2014). In fact, the toy was already blocked in the early 2000s, when her husband was very hated and she began to take a stand on issues such as the war in Iraq (she really liked the pacifists) and the referendum on assisted insemination (which, compared to abortion, was crucial is); Topics on which her husband naturally had a completely different opinion, at least in public life. And certainly in a normal country it would have been almost a matter of honor to have a woman who thinks differently and, paradoxically, sympathizes with the left: a way to give voice to the “pluralism” that he had always claimed to be an editor and also an excuse to use such an emancipated woman to combat the chauvinism of her parties and her networks; However, since the reality is obviously different, he didn't like it and the press and politicians exploited it and turned it into a weapon. In short, the obsession had changed her skin, but had become even stronger.
They use it and reuse it there, for example by inviting her to the PD in an unknown, however provocative, way (Veltroni, 2009) or by accepting a letter from her in which she apologizes from her husband for a series of… calls for terrible outings (first real creaks) on women at Telegatti 2007 (“I therefore ask the public man for a public apology,” by republic, flagship newspaper of anti-Berlusconism in a time when newspapers formed communities). Then the Olgettine scandal, the Bunga-Bunga and Berlusconi's extramarital life eat into their relationship, which, however, continues to be discussed through lawyers, hearings and even alimony payments. The two, who don't necessarily have to play the role of innocents, try to bury everything, but a whirlpool always brings them back there, always fashionable, even if he marries again – but it will apparently only be a symbolic marriage because of the imposition of the Children – with Marta Fascina. Her presence at her ex-husband's funeral was also news.
Private virtues and public vices, you might say. We knew little about what Berlusconi and Lario were like at home, for example what kind of father he was or what kind of mother she was, what they did in their free time and so on, and we didn't even care. In She, Paolo Sorrentino's film about Berlusconi, with Elena Sofia Ricci in the role of Lario, she is a bit like his voice of conscience, always a little unhappy, caught at the end of their relationship, but the only one who is able to fall for him to look inside. Tell him who he really is (spoiler: a miserable salesman of illusions, with all due respect, or so the film claims), but this too is a narrative subject to Berlusconi, to what we wanted to know. The fact is that Berlusconism and anti-Berlusconism accepted him, them and their relationship, first with toleration and then perhaps involuntarily. The challenge, if he wants it, from this evening onwards will be to show whether and how we can survive at the end of all this.
