Former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, a media tycoon known internationally for bouncing back from a series of sex scandals, corruption allegations and adopting a politically populist style, has died, Italian media reported.
He was 86.
Berlusconi led four Italian governments from 1994 to 2011. He had recently been admitted to a Milan hospital where he spent 45 days this spring being treated for a lung infection and chronic leukemia.
Italian news agency LaPresse first reported his death. Mediaset, a television network Berlusconi owned, announced his death with smiling photos of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.”
Berlusconi was a flamboyant billionaire.
