Berlusconi's wife breaks silence over divorce from Italian PM

London, Aug 23 (ANI): Silvio Berlusconi's estranged wife Veronica Lario has finally broken her silence over divorce from the Italian PM.

The 53-year-old former actress is quoted in a new book, Tendenza Veronica. The explosive tome reveals the thinking behind Lario's extreme step to divorce Berlusconi at the end of April. She made the decision after learning that he had attended the 18th birthday party of aspiring actress Noemi Letizia and gave her an expensive necklace as a gift, reports The Guardian.

At that point of time, Lario had said she could not be with a man who "frequented minors".

In the book, she tells author Maria Latella, an Italian journalist who has known Lario for 18 years, that Berlusconi (correctly) informed her that he was going to Naples for a conference on refuse control, but failed to tell her he would also attend Letizia's birthday bash.

"In the afternoon he told me, 'You know, I've got to go to this meeting on rubbish. Early tomorrow morning.' It was the latest lie. So it was time for me to find some respect for myself. It was better to divorce. I don't know where this conviction, this force, came from. Anyway, it's him who put me in this position," she said.

"I think I have no other choice than to separate," Latella quotes Lario telling her. Asked why she had not confronted her husband, Lario said she could not bring herself to do it. he said: "He would tell me yet another lie and this time I would not be able to resist.

"Will they say I could have done this before? Maybe, so therefore this will be a catch-up divorce, let's put it that way. I cannot condemn myself to being his nanny, and I can no longer stop him making himself ridiculous before the world. I am at the end of the line. Ten years ago I was not ready; today I can say with my head high, 'I am separating from this man.'" (ANI)