The Naples seafront offers relief from the dusty, hot and chaotic streets. In
the evening young girls arrive on the backs of their boyfriends’ scooters
and perch self-consciously on the railings, with the harbour, Mount Vesuvius
and the Bay of Naples as a backdrop, canoodling, chatting — and above all
posing.
Any one of them could be Noemi Letizia, the 18-year-old aspiring model from
the suburb of Portici, who wants to make a career as a television showgirl
and actress, and perhaps in politics. This week Chi magazine, which
is owned by Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, published photographs of
Ms Letizia kissing her boyfriend of one month, Domenico Cozzolino, on the
seafront, with her mother, Anna, kissing her father, Benedetto, in the
background.
But Ms Letizia is not like all the others: she is at the centre of a political
storm that shows no sign of receding. The storm is also threatening to rock
Mr Berlusconi’s normally unshakeable political bandwagon. The unlikely
friendship the Prime Minister has cultivated down the years with Noemi and
her mother and father, including his appearence at her 18th birthday party,
has led to his wife planning to divorce him and a dip in his normally
stratospheric poll ratings.
The photo spreads are part of a campaign by Mr Berlusconi to use his media
power to silence the “gossip” that Ms Letizia, whose 18th birthday party he
attended two weeks ago and who calls him “Papi” (Daddy), is either his
illegitimate daughter or has been his underage mistress. It is high-risk,
since it keeps Ms Letizia in the public eye — and with her, the many
contradictions in Mr Berlusconi’s account of how he knows her.
“It is all a campaign of lies and inventions to sell newspapers,” Mr Letizia,
genial and relaxed, told The Times at the family’s block of flats,
opposite a car spare parts shop in Portici.
Mr Letizia, an employee of Naples council, confirmed that last year he had
declared an income of about €12,000 (£10,700). Portici is a middle-class
suburb, unlike the more rundown areas of Naples where crime is rife, but it
is far from the world inhabited by Mr Berlusconi.
Odd, then, that his daughter, who began to pose for a model agency at the age
of 15, wore designer clothes and had been driven to school in a Mercedes.
“But that is all lies,” he said. “Noemi went to the local state school, in
the normal way.”
It was he, Mr Letizia insisted, who invited the Prime Minister to the birthday
party, not his daughter. They were old friends dating back to his youthful
involvement in the Naples branch of the Socialist Party (PSI) led by Bettino
Craxi, Mr Berlusconi’s political mentor.
Had he been Craxi’s driver, as Mr Berlusconi claimed? “No.” So why had Mr
Berlusconi said this, when it could be — and swiftly was — disproved by
those who were close to Craxi, including his son, Bobo Craxi, also a
politician? “Things are often attributed to Berlusconi which he never said.”
But he said it on April 29, at 16:34, to Ansa, the Italian news agency, I
tell him. A shrug, a handshake, and a smile.
Despite the cosy Chi photos, Noemi’s father has lived apart from his
wife and daughter for more than two years. Mr Berlusconi’s gift to Noemi — a
€6,000 pendant — was supposedly an impromptu gift during an impromptu detour
to her party; but the photographer Pasquale Cerullo, who was there, said
that security agents had checked the venue in the morning. “Everyone knew he
was coming, even the cleaning ladies,” he said.
Mr Berlusconi said later that he visited Naples to consult Mr Letizia on
prospective candidates for his party, the People of Liberty (PdL) in the
June European elections. In Naples this is denied by the candidates, who say
they do not know Mr Letizia. Mr Berlusconi, moreover, in denying that he had
“showgirls” as candidates to be MEPs, said on television on May 6 that he
left such matters to “party co-ordinators”.
Then there is Noemi’s mother, Anna Palumbo, who was an aspiring television
showgirl after her marriage to Mr Letizia in 1980 at the age of 19, taking
part in Break Family on a local station, Canale 21. Ms Palumbo
(Italian women retain their maiden names) has refused to say how, when and
where she met the man who is now the Prime Minister; on another occasion she
said that she met him through her husband’s political activities.
Ms Palumbo’s career does not seem to have taken off: at the Canale 21 studios
in the suburb of Agnano her name brings puzzled frowns. “I can’t say I
remember her, and I never forget a face,” Lorenza Licenziati, a longserving
presenter, said.
Inquiries by The Times have established that Ms Letizia’s birth
certificate names Benedetto Letizia as her father. In early August 1990,
when Ms Palumbo says her daughter was conceived (she was born in April,
1991), Mr Berlusconi was in Rome ensuring that a law creating his commercial
television empire was passed.
“I don’t remember him being in Naples at that time,” Giulio Di Donato, a
veteran Naples politician who was close to Craxi and deputy head of the PSI,
said. “I don’t believe he is either the father of Noemi Letizia or her
lover.” Somewhat frankly, Ms Letizia told Chi that she was a
virgin.
So how to account for the row? “He is naturally exuberant. It’s in the man’s
nature. He has a rapport with ordinary people — that is why he is so
popular. He goes to Abruzzo to meet earthquake victims, meets an old lady
there with no teeth, gives her a hug and says he will get her some dentures.
He came to Naples and vowed to resolve the rubbish crisis in three months —
and he did. He is a risktaker, larger than life.”
There may be an excellent explanation for all the unanswered questions. But if
there is, the Prime Minister has not yet provided it. Why, for example, did
Noemi tell Angelo Agrippa of Corriere del Mezzogiorno, a local paper,
that Mr Berlusconi “brought her up”, that he had given her expensive
presents in the past, and that before coming of age she often visited him in
Rome, Milan and Sardinia, albeit accompanied by one of her parents.
“He still has some explaining to do,” said Mr Di Donato.
The above report originally quoted Anna Palumbo, the mother of Noemi
Letizia, saying that she hoped Silvio Berlusconi could do for her daughter
what he did not manage to do for her, implying that she had known Mr.
Berlusconi in the 1980s during her early TV career. This quote was, in
fact, given to an Italian journalist and was mistranslated in our report.
Ms. Palumbo was not referring to Mr. Berlusconi when she said "il Signore",
but to "The Lord", meaning God. There was, therefore, no implication that
she knew Mr. Berlusconi in the 1980s. We apologise for any embarrassment
caused.
