A model and soap opera actress said yesterday that she was one of the girls who joined Silvio Berlusconi for a weekend at a health spa last year.
Licia Nunez, 31, said that she joined the Italian Prime Minister at an Umbrian health resort with several other women last November, but was devastated to have been dragged into a scandal surrounding the alleged recruitment of prostitutes to attend parties.
She said that Mr Berlusconi called her a few days ago to tell her how indignant he was about what had been written about her in the newspapers. She has worked for Mr Berlusconi’s television channels.
“I am not an escort, I have never taken money, I have never received gifts, I am not a part of anybody’s entourage,” Ms Nunez told the daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on its website.
“As soon as my mother read all this dirt she burst into tears. This is very serious, I am really afraid for my career.”
Prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, are investigating a businessman, Gianpaolo Tarantini, on suspicion that he abetted prostitution by allegedly paying women to attend parties at Mr Berlusconi’s homes in the capital and Sardinia. Mr Tarantini has denied all wrongdoing.
Two weeks ago the weekly magazine L’Espresso reported that Mr Berlusconi, Mr Tarantini and several young women spent the weekend of November 28 last year at the Marc Messegue Health Centre near the medieval hilltop town of Todi, 130 kilometres (80 miles) northeast of Rome.
Ms Nunez said that she joined Mr Berlusconi and his guests but had travelled alone in a car with a driver that the Prime Minister provided.
Ms Nunez, who comes from Barletta outside Bari, said that she had met Mr Berlusconi “six or seven times” and spoke of seeing him at a social event in March 2008 before he was re-elected Prime Minister for the third time.
She described him like a paternal figure who advised her on artistic issues.
“I struck up the courage to give him my cell phone number. Incredibly, he called me after the elections and invited me to Palazzo Grazioli to celebrate the victory,” she said.
She also described what happened when she met Mr Tarantini with Mr Berlusconi and the others at the Todi health spa.
“We all ate together and of course I spoke to this man [Mr Tarantini]. We come from the same place so we cracked jokes in the local Bari dialect. Then we exchanged telephone numbers, it was more of a courtesy,” she said.
“I never ask a stranger if he has a criminal record, it was enough for me that he was the premier’s guest.”
Ms Nunez said she had never accepted any gifts from the Prime Minister but had given him a “beautiful blue cashmere scarf” for his birthday in 2008. “In Umbria he wore it around his neck, which made me happy,” she said.
Mr Berlusconi’s office declined to comment on Ms Nunez’ interview today and her lawyers, Alessandro Varrenti and Annamaria Bernardini de Pace, who are based in Milan declined to speak to The Times on their client’s interview.
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