Silvio Berlusconi — Profile, Rankings & Fame Trend

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He controlled three TV networks, Italy's biggest publishing house, AC Milan, and then the prime minister's office — all at once. Silvio Berlusconi spent nine years running the country while owning the media that covered him, a concentration of power that made him, at his death in 2023, what The Guardian called the most powerful individual in any Western demo

Biography

About

Berlusconi climbed into Italy's financial elite in the late 1960s and became controlling shareholder of Mediaset, then bought AC Milan in 1986. He entered politics in 1994, founding Forza Italia and winning the first of three turns as prime minister — serving from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011, the longest post-war tenure in Italian history. In 2013, the Supreme Court convicted him of tax fraud: four years confirmed, banned from office, though at 76 he served the time through community service. After his ban lifted he returned to the European Parliament in 2019, then the Senate…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

said20 Apr 2008

I have little hair because my brain is so big it pushes the hair out.

— As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)

Silvio Berlusconi

said20 Apr 2008

To do that kind of job you must be mentally disturbed.

— On magistrates, as quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)

Silvio Berlusconi

said2 May 2006

They have tried to hang me on an isolated word, taken out of context from my whole speech … I did not say anything against the Islamic civilization...

— His response to widespread condemnation of the above comments, in "In quotes: Berlusconi in his own words" at BBC News (2 May 2006)

Silvio Berlusconi

said2006