Hollywood Celebs’ Gossips

Noemi Letizia, a girl from Naples, was gifted a gold necklace priced about €6,000 by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently on her 18th birthday party held at a luxury villa in her hometown.

“It was a lovely surprise to see the man I call papi  (daddy) at my party. I call him papi but of course he is second to my father.  He gave me a lovely necklace as a present.” Noemi thrilled.

According to the Italian blog Sdamy.com, Noemi Letizia is a former Miss Tirreno and owns a cosmetics shop.

Noemi’s father Benedetto Letizia is a businessman who befriended with Silvio Berlusconi. The above-mentioned site also said he is a municipal employee of Naples.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (Alessio85/Flickr)

Silvio Berlusconi, 72, also signed a photograph of himself for Noemi Letizia as well as a book in which he had written a goosebumps-raising dedication to her saying: ‘To my little Noemi, my little graphic artist, your little daddy teacher.”

Apparently, Veronica Lario, Berlusconi’s wife, was not happy with this. In an email to the news agency ANSA, Lario criticized her husband for attending Noemi Letizia’s birthday party, saying “that really surprised me because he has never come to the 18th  birthday parties of any of our (three) children despite being invited.”

As wife, Veronica Lario is understandable that she must have felt uncomfortable with her husband Berlusiconi and Noemi Leticia’s relationship.

Ms Lario also lashed out against his intention to field four young ladies to contest at June’s European elections.

Update 1: Naomi Letizia spoke out her relationship with Berlusiconi during an interview after her birthday party.

Bild.de: Noemi Letizia (18): “When Papi Silvio calls, I come!”

Noemi, do you really call the Prime Minister Papi?

Noemi Letizia: Yes, for me he is like a second father. He told me that I remind him of his daughter Barbara.

Not all pretty girls are allowed to have the Prime Minister at their birthday parties.

Letizia: No, honestly that was a surprise. Before then, nobody knew about my friendship with Papi Silvio.

What did he get you for a present?

Letizia: A gold necklace with a pendant.

Has Silvio Berlusconi ever been to one of your birthday parties before?

Letizia: No. But he is always there for me. Once he bought me diamonds, another time a chain. He is always giving me presents.

What do you think of Silvio Berlusconi?

Letizia: I am in awe of him. He calls me and I go to him, if he has time. I will stay with him for a while, listen to him, that is all that he wants from me. We sometimes sing together.

Does Berlusconi confide in you?

Letizia: Sometimes he gets upset when he is criticised. I make him feel better. No one knows how sensitive Papi is.

Update 2: Neomi Letizia has a boyfriend, named Domenico Cozzolino. They just dated one month. Times reported on May 16 Silvio Berlusconi-owned Chi magazine published photographs of Noemi Letizia kissing  Domenico Cozzolino, intending to silence the critics to criticize the 72-year-old of having an inappropriate relationship with the 18-year-old girl. Also, Berlusconi had repeatedly said in numerous interviews including on France 2 and CNN Noemi Letizia was daughter of his friend and he was “nothing wrong” with a relationship with her.  But all of his efforts were seemly in vain because La Republica spared no efforts digging up the stories associated wit their relationship. On May 21, the newspaper accused Berlusconi met up Miss Letizia without being accompanied by her parent at least one time:

On the evening of 19 November 2008, in the marvelous Roman setting of Villa Madama, the Prime Minister received the foremost entrepreneurs of our Country at an official dinner attended by Cabinet Ministers and top Italian designers. There were about sixty guests that the Prime Minister entertained together with various Ministers, Letta, Tremonti, Bondi, Fitto, only to name a few.  At his eight-seat table at the centre of the hall, together with prominent designers like Santo Versare and his wife, Leonardo Ferragamo and his sister Giovanna, Paolo Zegna and Laudomia Pucci, Mr. Berlusconi hosted  “a gorgeous girl” according to the accounts of the guests. Light brown hair, a lame dress. A very charming young lady that nobody had ever met. According to the words of an entrepreneur who was at the dinner, Mr. Berlusconi introduced her to the guests at the table as “Noemi Letizia, daughter of very dear Neapolitan friends of mine. She is doing an internship and is here to meet the leaders of the Italian fashion industry”.

The girl said very little and listened most of the time.

At a certain point, according to at least three of the guests who were present, she made a rapid tour of the hall while the orchestra was playing American and French music. She certainly did not go unobserved. One of the guests sitting at another table next to the secretary general, at the time, of the Prime Minister’s Office, Mauro Masi, inquired “Who is that girl?”. The answer was the following: “She is a dear Neapolitan friend of the Prime Minister’s. She wasn’t supposed to be here but he wanted her to be present at all costs and this required redoing the seating arrangements of table one ….”.  This means that the seats at the Prime Minister’s table had to be re-arranged. At the end of the dinner, the guests recalled her leaving in a blue car which followed the Prime Minister’s A8 Audi.

Mr. Berlusconi stated in several interviews that he had never personally met the girl from Casoria, that he had seen her a couple of times but always in the company of her parents. “I have had the opportunity of meeting her through her parents. That is all”, he said in an interview for “France 2” on 6th May.  “I am a friend of her father’s. Period”, he added during an interview for “La Stampa” on 4 May. It is evident that the reconstruction of what happened at the dinner in November seems to open up another breach in the Prime Minister’s line of defense about this affair. As “Repubblica” has found out, the Prime Minister did meet Noemi on at least one occasion, i.e. as guest at a dinner without the presence of her parents.

On May 25, La Reuplica published an even explosive story–an interview with Neomi Letizia former boyfriend Gino Flaminio (from 28 August 2007 until 10 January 2009). Sky News is using ‘Berlusconi Stole My Teenage Girlfriend’ as the title for their story. What did Gino Glaminio said? Read the following excerpts, though a bit lengthy, maybe a good bite:

“Noemi’s parents had nothing to do with it. The relationship was with [Noemi] herself. It started between Berlusconi and Noemi. She never told me that he, ‘Papi’ Silvio, talked politics with her father, Elio. Not as far as I know. Never, absolutely not. I’ll tell you how this whole story started and you should know that at least in the beginning – because four or five times I listened in on the phone calls, too – I’ll tell you what Noemi told me. The relationship between Noemi and the president began more or less in October 2008. Noemi told me she’d had some pictures taken for a fashion “book”. She had delivered it to a Roman agency, an important one – no, I don’t remember the name – one of those that gets work for models and dancers, in short one of those agencies girls have to go to when they want to break into show business. Noemi told me that Emilio Fede goes to that agency in Rome and takes away these “books”, not just Noemi’s, for sure. I don’t know, maybe he needs them for casting some showgirls). The fact is – I repeat, this is what Noemi told me – that the very same day Emilio Fede had lunch or dinner – I don’t remember which – with Berlusconi. Fede ended up forgetting those photos on the President’s table. And that’s how Berlusconi called Noemi. Four, five months after the “book” was in the hands of the agency, Noemi says. It was a miracle, I always say.

Anyway, Noemi says that Berlusconi called her on the phone. The guy himself, directly. No secretary. No operator. Him, directly. It was in the afternoon, five or six in the afternoon. Noemi was studying. Berlusconi told her he had seen her pictures. He said he was struck by her “angelic face”, by her “purity”; he told her she should stay just the way she was, “pure”. That was the first phone call, I wasn’t there and I’m telling you what Noemi told me afterwards, but I believe her. That’s the way things went, because there were other times when I was there and Noemi, to be playful or to convince me that she was really talking with Berlusconi, would hold her cell phone away from her ear and I could hear him in his own voice talking about her “purity” and her “angelic face”. And then, one time, he added something else, like: “You’re an adorable girl.”

At first Berlusconi didn’t tell Noemi who he was. In that first call, he asked her a lot of questions: how old are you, what would you like to do, what do your mother and father do? Do you study? What school do you go to? A long phone call. But normal, easy-going. And then, Noemi decided to ask him, “Excuse me, but with all these questions, who are you?” At first he answered her, “If I tell you, you won’t believe it.” And then, “Can’t you tell who I am?” When Noemi told me this, to tell you the truth, I didn’t believe it. Then, when I heard the other calls and I could hear his voice, his actual voice, Berlusconi’s, how could I not believe it? Noemi told me it was always the President who called her. Then, I don’t know if she also called him, she didn’t tell me and I don’t know. She called him ‘papi’ on the phone, very calmly.  Even in front of me. If we were together and Noemi answered and said ‘papi’ I understood it was the President. When I was there for some of the calls between Berlusconi and Noemi, I thought it was like a father-daughter relationship. One night, Emilio Fede and Berlusconi – together – called Noemi. I know because I was next to her, in the car. Now I couldn’t tell you why the President passed the phone to Emilio Fede, I don’t know. I thought that Fede had to prepare some “auditions” for showgirls, that kind of thing.” (Yesterday, late in the evening, during Studio Aperto, Fede asserted that he had met Noemi’s grandmother. La Repubblica asked Gino if on any occasion Noemi had affirmed that event. “Never, absolutely not,” was the young man’s response.)

“Anyway, that evening, first I heard the voice of the President and then that of Emilio Fede,” Gino continued. “I don’t want to be misunderstood or create any confusion in all this, I want to stay out of it. In the phone calls I heard, Berlusconi took a paternal attitude with Noemi. He asked her how school was going, if she was studying hard, that kind of thing. But I started running away from the situation. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the whole turn of events. I couldn’t see things crystal clear, the way I like to. I felt like the butcher down on the corner who was Britney Spears’ boyfriend. How I could I think of coping with that? I told Noemi, ‘I don’t like that world, I don’t think there’s much decency or respect in those parts.’ I didn’t like telling her that because I know that Noemi is a wholesome girl, she’s still so young she never lets go of her little blue stuffed bear, with a cross around its neck, her teddy. A quiet, simple girl with values. With the same values as me, at least up to a certain point in our history.”

Those around Gino must have already heard this story more than once because now that he has decided to tell it to strangers, the tension has dropped as if his family, neighbors and friends have already heard it on other occasions, maybe in dribs and drabs. Some get distracted, some murmur to others, some talk on the phone, some get ready to go out for Friday night. Gino doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t lose his thread and he seems to remind himself at intervals, once more, how things went.

“I already started distancing myself from Noemi in December. But the thing I really couldn’t stomach was that long New Year’s vacation in Sardinia, at his villa. Noemi told me in December that ‘Papi’ had invited her there. She told me, ‘I can bring a girlfriend, any girlfriend, it doesn’t matter. There will be other girls.’ And she took Roberta. And she stayed with Roberta the whole time. I let her know that I didn’t like it, but it went in one ear and out the other. So she left around 26-27 December and came back on 4-5 January. When she came home she told me a lot of things. That Berlusconi had treated her well, her and her friends. They joked, they laughed… There were lots of girls. Between thirty and forty. The girls stayed in these bungalows that are in the park. There were four in Noemi’s bungalow: besides her and Roberta, there were ‘the little twins’, but do you know who these ‘little twins’ are? I also think she told me a lot of lies. She said that Berlusconi was only with them the night of New Year’s Eve. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe it. Too many strange things happened. I called Noemi on her cell phone and she never answered. I tried again and again, then I gave up and called Roberta, her friend, and it drove me crazy when Roberta said: ‘No, I can’t put her on, she’s over there’ – over where? – or she was eating – ‘So what?’ I said, but there was no answer. Noemi’s parents accompanied her to Rome for that holiday at the end of the year. Noemi and Roberta stopped first at a villa there, like they told me later, and they got there in time to see a bunch of people in front of the villa – reporters, photographers? – then they put them on the President’s private plane together with other girls, is what Noemi told me… When she came home, Noemi wasn’t my Noemi anymore, my little stringbean, the simple girl I used to love, the girl who was never embarrassed to come and pick me up at the warehouse in the evening. We broke up in January. Before Christmas, we had gone to book a room at the Villa Santa Chiara restaurant in Casoria for her birthday party – the ‘Miami’ room – I suggested it – and she was already expecting a ‘surprise’ from Berlusconi, but nobody thought the surprise would be Berlusconi himself, in the flesh. We broke up in January so I didn’t go to the party. I met her a few other times, to pick up an inexpensive object she still had that had great personal value for me. Another time, we had the time to have a pretty curt conversation. She gave back almost all my letters and photos. I gave her back everything – I only kept a few things, the letter she wrote me before Christmas, a couple of photos – because I didn’t want her and her family to think that once Noemi had become Sophia Loren, I could disgrace her. I have my own life these days, my girl Manuela, my job, a thousand Euros a month and that’s fine with me, it’s all I need. Sure, I read about this new boyfriend of Noemi’s, what’s his name? that nobody ever saw anywhere around although he says he’s known her for two years, and I think Noemi is telling a bunch of lies. As many lies as she told me about those trips. She told me that she always went to Rome with her mother. For example, about that dinner on 19 November 2008 at Villa Madama, she told me, ‘We went to dinner with the President, me, Dad and Mom at the same table.’ Weren’t her parents sitting at that table? Then she told me another lie. She was given a necklace and bracelet that night, but nothing very valuable. And the President also gave her mother a present. I hear a lot of lies, yeah, but anyway they’re about Noemi, about her parents, about Berlusconi – what have I got to do with it?”

Update: Roman Catholic Church criticised Silvio Berlusconi’s link with Noemi Letizia [May 26, 2009]

Alessandro Plotti, former Archbishop of Pisa and former vice-president of the Italian Bishop’s Conference (CEI) said: “Matters that so heavily involve the private life of a head of state cannot but harm his personal credibility.”

As the CEI held its annual general assembly in Rome the archbishop, a senior and respected voice in the Church, said that the “media storm” surrounding the case risked “transforming immoral choices into signs of success, examples of a power that allows itself to do anything.”

He told La Stampa that “the deadly trickle of details and indiscretions adding to the general picture is alarming. People with responsibility, people who hold public roles at the highest levels cannot ignore the way that their actions and the way they explain themselves to others have an effect on public opinion.”

He added: “This scandal shows how dramatically the level of public morality has sunk. . . Things become normal which most certainly are not.” He said that those in power should be examples of “austerity, sobriety, and a life ruled by self-control”. If the scandal was not got up by the press “which frankly I hope it is”, it would lead to “terrible results we cannot imagine”.

Father Antonio Sciortino, editor of the popular Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, said Italy had had enough of “a culture of showgirls and TV hostesses. The country needs something quite different. It has to tackle the problems of the grave economic crisis it faces. But it is up the to the Prime Minister to clear things up for once and for all. One cannot refused legitimate questioning from the media. No one can claim moral immunity. Everybody is required to account for their own behaviour. Even the slightest doubt that he has lied must be removed.”

Update:: Berlusconi denied again he had the had the inappropriate relationship with Noemi Letizia. He pledged he would resign if he was caught lying about the “accused” affair.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing demands to explain his relationship with a teenage girl, denied on Thursday he had had a “steamy affair” and said he would have to resign if caught lying about it.

He told reporters in Rome that if someone asked whether he had “a relationship, let’s say steamy or more than steamy, with an underage girl,” his answer would be: “Absolutely not.”

“I have sworn it on the life of my children. And I said that I am aware that, if this were perjury, I would have to resign a minute later,” said Berlusconi, who was elected for a third time last year and enjoys strong support in opinion polls.