Berlusconi angers wife with sexist comments

Silvio Berlusconi's wife has used a national newspaper to demand an apology from her husband for sexist jokes she said the former prime minister had failed to apologise for in private.

Silvio Berlusconi and Veronica Lario: the pair are arguing about sexist comments

Veronica says she had always tried to avoid "conjugal conflict".

Veronica Lario said her husband's sexist jokes, made at a TV awards dinner last week, had been "damaging to my dignity."

In a front page letter in the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, Mrs Lario said the billionaire TV tycoon joked with women at the event saying "if I wasn't already married I would marry you right away," and "with you I'd go anywhere", according to his wife's account.

"These are affirmations that I see as damaging to my dignity, affirmations that... cannot be reduced to jokes," wrote Veronica, Mr Berlusconi's second wife and mother of three of his children.

She had been forced to make a public appeal for an apology "having not received on privately" she said.