Inside the life and state of the late Italian billionaire Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's longest-reigning prime minister since World War II, died Monday at the age of 86. He was an integral figure in the country's political life and was on Forbes' list of billionaires for decades.

Former Italian prime minister and business magnate Silvio Berlusconi died Monday at the age of 86 at San Raffaele Hospital inMilan. The media mogul turned politician was a dominant figure in Italian life for decades, first as a brash businessman who created the country's largest media conglomerate and then as the longest-ruling prime minister since World War II. He has been a contraversial figure both during and after his tenure, facing several judicial investigations during his career, including a conviction for tax fraud in 2013 and bribery of a former senator in 2015.

"It is with deep sadness and sincere sympathy that Fininvest remembers its founder, Silvio Berlusconi," reads a statement from his holding company, Fininvest. "His creative power, his entrepreneurial genius, the constant fairness in his actions and his extraordinary humanity have always been integral assets of the company."

The Forza Italia political party, which Berlusconi founded in 1994, posted a message on Twitter saying "Farewell, President." No cause of death has yet been officially announced, but Berlusconi was diagnosed with leukemia in April when he was hospitalized for 45 days due to a lung infection. He was hospitalized again on Friday for "planned tests."

Since 1988, when Berlusconi first appeared on Forbes' billionaires list with an estimated $1 billion fortune, he was included in every subsequent ranking until his death. Forbes estimated Berlusconi's fortune at $6.8 billion at the time of his death, largely due to his investments in the Fininvest media group, which owns shares in TV station MediaForEurope, publisher Mondadori and Italian bank Banca Mediolanum.

At the time of his death, he was a senator for his Forza Italia party, having returned to the chamber after winning the election last September. Forza Italia won 8% of the electoral vote and was part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's coalition government. Berlusconi directly owned 61.2% of Fininvest, while his eldest children, Marina and Pier Silvio, each owned 7.65%, according to the company's latest filings with the Italian business registry. Eleonora, Barbara and Luigi - Berlusconi's children from his second marriage to actress Veronica Lario - each owned 7.14% of the company. Marina has headed Fininvest since 2005, while Barbara, Luigi and Pier Silvio hold a seat on the company's board of directors.

Silvio Berlusconi was born inMilan, Italy in 1936, where he attended high school and then spent some time selling vacuum cleaners and singing in nightclubs and on cruise ships before earning a law degree from the University ofMilan in 1961. He was exempted from compulsory military service, ostensibly because he was the first child born, and started a real estate company inMilan after graduation. Four years later he married Carla Elvira Lucia Dall'Oglio and subsequently had two children, Marina and Pierre Silvio. The real estate company became an empire in the 1970s as Berlusconi bought land and built residential developments inMilan and the surrounding Lombardy region, including his ambitious project to create a new neighborhood from scratch called Milano 2, which is now home to nearly 6,000 people.

In 1980, four years after buyingMilan TV, he decided to turn his attention to the national television monopoly held by the state-owned RAI and turned his Canale 5 channel into the first private television network in the country. His fortune grew in the 1980s as he continued to buy television channels and expand nationwide, while increasing his national popularity with the purchase of A.C. Milan, one of Italy's leading soccer teams, in 1986. He divorced his first wife in 1985 and married Lario five years later.

After a massive corruption scandal that toppled Italy's political class and led to the collapse of the country's major political parties in the early 1990s, Berlusconi saw an opportunity to capitalize on his fame. In 1994, he formed the centrist "Forza Italia!" party and unexpectedly won, securing a majority in parliament with 43% of the vote in a coalition with the right-wing Northern League party. But his first term in the top job was short-lived: the unstable partnership collapsed by the end of the year, and Berlusconi lost the next election in 1996.

After five years in opposition, part of which he spent defending himself against corruption investigations, including allegations of illegal donations to the Italian Socialist Party in 1991 and a case of false financial reporting related to Fininvest (both cases were later dropped), he returned to power, winning elections in 2001. He remained in office until 2006, sending Italian troops into the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before defeat in regional elections led to his resignation in 2005. He ran again in new national elections in 2006 but lost. Two years later, the short reign of the centrist leftist government that followed dissolved, and Berlusconi won subsequent national elections, making a third term as prime minister.

By then, Berlusconi had been embroiled in several judicial investigations and probes - he faced more than 20 legal proceedings during his lifetime, including abuse of power and enticement of underage prostitutes, all of which were later dismissed or ended in acquittals, with the exception of the 2013 and 2015 convictions, the latter of which was overturned two years later after the statute of limitations expired.

His third term as prime minister broke the record for the longest reigning prime minister since the founding of the Italian republic in 1946, but by 2011 Italy was in deep economic recession due to the eurozone debt crisis. Berlusconi resigned, giving way to a technocratic government led by economist Mario Monti.

In 2012, Berlusconi and Lario divorced after a three-year separation. Even after stepping down as prime minister, Berlusconi never stayed out of business and politics: he maintained close control of his Fininvest business empire and remained leader of his party, Forza Italia, until his death, holding a seat in the European Parliament from May 2019 to October 2022. In June 2017, he sold A.C. Milan to Chinese investors for $630 million, but returned to soccer ownership, acquiring A.C. Monza, located near his 18th-century villa in the city of Arcore, in 2018.

During Italy's Covid-19 pandemic, Berlusconi donated about $12 million (10 million euros) for his hard-hit home region of Lombardy to build a new hospital at the former Fiera Milano fairgrounds inMilan.

Berlusconi leaves behind five children, Marina, Pier Silvio, Eleonora, Barbara, and Luigi; his brother Paolo; and 17 grandchildren.