Celebrities: Evelina Manna Silvio Berlusconi's former mistress (upgrade)

“There’s something about… Italian women. Even the policewomen are drop-dead sexy. At their best, Italian women ooze glamour and class. And Evelina Manna is Italian womanhood at its most seductive and also its most dangerous. She has the kind of curves a saint or even a head of state could fall for—and that’s exactly what happened. For four years she was Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s mistress, and it was by all accounts a fiery affair.

Berlusconi’s sexual liaisons have become the stuff of legend. His wife (at the time) has even called him “sick” in the press. He is also a deeply embattled figure, currently facing three court cases for bribery, corruption and allegedly paying an underage Moroccan belly dancer known as Ruby the Heart Stealer for sex.

It’s no surprise when you meet Evelina Manna–model, film actress and now film producer–why she caught the prime minister’s eye. And why for a couple of years before the bunga bungas started she was his full-time mistress.

“Six years ago I was promoting Alexander, a film in which I had a part,” she recalls, “and I did an interview in an Italian magazine. They had taken beautiful pictures of me, very intellectual, black and white. Naked, yes, but artistic. In the interview they asked me who was my ideal man. I said, ‘Someone with the intelligence of JFK Jr., the passion of Che Guevara and the cunning of Silvio Berlusconi.’”

Sometime after, Evelina’s phone rang. It was Berlusconi’s secretary: “I am calling from the office of the prime minister.” “I said, ‘Yes, and I’m Mother Teresa!’” Evelina says. But it was no joke.

And how were things that first time in the bedroom? “It was fantastic!” says Evelina. “He is a man. Very male. It is the fantasy of journalists to imagine he is into crazy stuff. It is true that when there is love, you can do a lot. But we had a beautiful relationship. It was clean.”

Is Berlusconi still capable of performing six times a night, as his personal physician has said in the Italian press? Says Evelina, “It depends on the woman.”

Then one day the affair came to an end, in 2009. Berlusconi was going through a divorce. His mother had died, and the bunga bunga parties started. And Evelina went her own way, soldiering on with her career. “I haven’t yet met another man like that,” she says. Then she states the obvious: “It is hard to find a man who can follow the prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, into my bedroom.”