(Image: https://burst.shopifycdn.com/photos/autumn-table-setting.jpg?width=746&format=pjpg&exif=0&iptc=0)By Crispian Balmer ROME, June 12 (Reuters) - Brash, ebullient and a self-made billionaire, four-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was a media mogul and political showman whose financial and sexual scandals made him the most polarising figure in modern Italy. He died on Monday aged 86, sources said. With an unassailable self-confidence and a sharp entrepreneurial spirit, Berlusconi created a business empire that at its peak stretched from construction to television, bali home (www.miiza.fr) publishing, bali home retailing and top flight soccer. He used his wealth and media prowess to launch himself into politics in 1994, upending traditional parties in a way that another property mogul, Donald Trump, later did when he was elected U.S.
president in 2016. Berlusconi's many critics say he used his power primarily to protect his own business interests, deco interieur pointing to Italy's weak economic record, hidebound bureaucracy and unchecked corruption during his lengthy stints in government. He himself said he only entered politics to halt the left. “Politics was never my passion. It made me lose a lot of time and energy. If I entered the ring, it was just to prevent the communists from taking power,” he told Chi magazine in an interview to mark his 80th birthday in 2016. Voters repeatedly bought into his can-do exuberance and Berlusconi survived a string of diplomatic gaffes and scandals, including allegations he had sex with an underage girl and hosted wild orgies. But he was overwhelmed by the scale of Europe's financial crisis in 2011 and had to resign as prime minister. Fresh humiliation followed in the shape of a 2013 conviction for tax fraud, a verdict which meant he was temporarily barred from parliament and stripped of his cherished title, Il Cavaliere, deco interieur or the Knight - a state decoration. Under financial pressure, he sold his beloved AC Milan soccer team, whose success on the field had once mirrored his political triumphs, while his efforts to turn his media group into a pan-European broadcasting giant never really took off. Defying the tide of time, Berlusconi campaigned ahead of a 2022 national election, but his famed sparkle had faded and his once predominant Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party, riven with divisions, took barely 8% of the vote - its lowest ever score. However, it was enough to secure a return to government as a junior partner in a rightist coalition, with Berlusconi himself winning a Senate seat, ending his parliamentary exile. As with his political party, style boho Miiza so with his business empire, Berlusconi left no single heir apparent.
Under Italian law, all five of his children will receive a share of his assets, while Forza Italia might struggle to survive without him at the helm. TOPLESS GAME SHOWS Berlusconi was born into a modest family in northern Italy in 1936. After stints as a cruise ship crooner, he made his first fortune in real estate deals in Milan in the 1960s and 70s.