By Emma Bubola
Not a single night passes without Karima el-Mahroug pondering how different her existence might have been had she never crossed paths with Silvio Berlusconi.
Fourteen years ago, el-Mahroug, then just 17 and recognized as the nightclub performer Ruby Heart-Stealer, unexpectedly became the focal point of a major national scandal and a worldwide tabloid obsession. Berlusconi, who was Italy’s prime minister at that time, faced allegations of paying her for sex during wild parties he threw at his villa near Milan, notorious now as the “Bunga Bunga” events.
She refuted the claims. He denied it as well. Ultimately, a court found him not guilty — and he subsequently passed away. Yet the ordeal persists for el-Mahroug, now 31 and eager to move forward.
“He ruined my life,” she stated last week while bracing for yet another court session, which she hopes will be the final one. The hearing scheduled for Monday might decide whether the allegations against her in this scandal will be dismissed or advance, leaving her existence in limbo. She and other women involved in the case faced accusations of concealing information for Berlusconi and receiving payments to lie in court on his behalf.
El-Mahroug admits to attending and dancing at Berlusconi’s gatherings and going back multiple times, receiving around 40,000 euros (approximately $44,000) along with jewelry. However, she adamantly denies breaking any laws, attributing her actions to her youth and financial needs stemming from a challenging upbringing.
Over a year after Berlusconi’s death — a flamboyant media mogul who transitioned into politics and reigned over Italy for nearly thirty years — his influence remains substantial.
His image graces stamps and campaign posters for his party, as well as cellphone cases, mugs, and T-shirts. Giorgia Meloni serves as Italy’s prime minister now, years after he facilitated the rise of the marginalized post-fascist political movement in which she was nurtured. Both supporters and foes recognize his lasting impact in the country’s more tumultuous political landscape; in television programming perceived by some as liberating and by others as crude and misogynistic; and in an economy he endeavored to modernize but remains largely stagnant.
“Italy bears a Berlusconian mark,” remarked Giovanni Orsina, head of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.
The long shadow of Berlusconi has for years plagued el-Mahroug, who relocated to Italy from Morocco during childhood.
She has spent almost half her life under media scrutiny as three separate trials concerning Berlusconi’s events meandered through the judicial system. Each legal case bears her alias, Ruby.
In the initial trial, Berlusconi faced allegations of engaging in sexual activities with el-Mahroug, who was a minor, and misusing his political position to cover it up. He was first convicted but later exonerated due to insufficient evidence regarding his knowledge of her age. In the subsequent trial, several of Berlusconi’s associates received convictions for facilitating prostitution by procuring women for the Bunga Bunga gatherings.
The latest trial, centered on claims of hush money, includes around 20 women, el-Mahroug among them. The women received acquittals from a lower court on technical grounds, yet Milan prosecutors contested the verdict. Monday’s hearing will tackle that challenge.
Some women involved in the parties confess to accepting money or lavish gifts from Berlusconi but assert he wasn’t attempting to silence them. Instead, they claim he had always been generous, even prior to the legal cases beginning, or he was rewarding them for the turmoil the case inflicted on their lives and reputations.
According to intercepted conversations referenced in court filings, el-Mahroug mentioned she requested 5 million euros from Berlusconi in exchange for assisting him during his trial. Nevertheless, in a recent interview, she denied receiving that amount, explaining she felt overwhelmed by the media scrutiny and might have said anything during the phone call.
Among the other women in the case is a former Russian beauty queen, who claims to have been Berlusconi’s longtime girlfriend and currently lives in Thailand, a former contestant on “Big Brother” who is now an aspiring padel instructor, and a law graduate.
They found themselves entangled in a scandal that, for many Italians, came to symbolize Berlusconi’s tarnishing of the highest office in Italy, a general decline of Italian politics into sordid tabloid narratives, and the relentless pursuit of his opponents to bring him down, even after his passing.
While his adversaries utilized the women as key evidence to illustrate what they termed Berlusconi’s depravity, the women contend his foes reduced them to mere tools for political gain.
“They destroyed me to reach him,” el-Mahroug remarked.
After the scandal erupted, she dedicated herself to raising her daughter Sofia, whom she had with her boyfriend at 19 in Genoa. She later began a long-term relationship with a man operating a health food establishment in the area and launched a beauty clinic focusing on Botox treatments and fillers — which she referred to as her ideal job.
Nevertheless, the scandal continues to haunt her.
A Google search of her name still reveals provocative photographs from her past, which she now regrets, taken when she was underage and plastered across newspaper headlines as the scandal unfolded. People she encounters in public spaces, as well as her daughter’s peers, occasionally refer to her as Ruby.
El-Mahroug expressed that she has worked diligently to equip her daughter Sofia, now 12, for the ridicule and worse that she anticipates may come her way, even though Berlusconi, the central figure of the drama, is no longer alive.
“Knowing him exacted a heavy toll on me,” she stated.
