Berlusconi, wife spat over his roving eye

ROME, April 30 (UPI) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's wife has written another public letter scolding her 72-year-old husband for his interest in young women.

Veronica Lario, 52, who publicly criticized her husband's eye for younger women two years ago, also accused him of going to the birthday party of a business associate's 18-year-old daughter but not attending parties of his own children.

"This surprised me," she told the ANSA news agency by e-mail. "Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his children, even if he was invited."

"What's happening today (in Italy) behind a front of bodily curves and female beauty is grave," she wrote, adding it offended all women and particularly those who had fought in the "front line" for women's equality.

Lario's comments were prompted by Berlusconi's choices of young female candidates for June's European Parliament elections.

"Someone has written that this is just a diversion for an emperor," Lario wrote. "I agree."

"What emerges from the newspapers is shamelessly trashy, all in the name of power," she wrote.

Berlusconi said in response that he was "afraid that the 'signora' believed what she read in the newspapers," ANSA reported.