Silvo Berlusconi's aides are urging him to check into a clinic for sex addicts, it was claimed yesterday.
The plan for the 72-year- old Italian premier to spend up to a fortnight getting treatment was disclosed as his wife told for the first time why she wants a divorce.
Veronica Lario, 52, said she was fed up with Mr Berlusconi's constant betrayals and deceit over 20 years of marriage. The billionaire has been mired in scandal since he attended the 18th birthday party of aspiring lingerie model Noemi Letizia in April and gave her a £5,200 necklace. A prostitute has claimed she spent a night at his Rome residence last November, which he denies.
Now a book by a journalist friend of Miss Lario says some of the prime minister's entourage want him to try sex-addiction therapy, then give his marriage another try.
Sources suggested a week or two-week stay had been mooted for the first time last month, shortly before Mr Berlusconi hosted a G8 summit of world leaders
But his ex-wife insisted it was too late to patch things up. She told author Maria Latella: 'I couldn't because he would tell me the umpteenth lie and this time I couldn't bear it.'
Miss Lario, a former topless actress, also revealed that her husband's alibi for Miss Letizia's party at a Naples disco was literally rubbish. She said: 'He told me, "You know, I have to go down to Naples, I have an important summit on rubbish disposal early tomorrow morning".' She added: 'I've reached the end of the line. I can't condemn myself to being his wet nurse and I can no longer stop him making himself look ridiculous in front of the world.
'What upsets me most is that a man like Silvio has betrayed himself. He has done so much, but today people only talk about things which overshadow who he really was.'
Miss Lario, who has three grown-up children by the prime minister, launched the attack in an updated biography called The Veronica Trend.
It tells how she decided in May that she could take no more of her husband's affairs and consorting with actresses and showgirls.
The book, to be published on Wednesday, will further damage Mr Berlusconi's reputation, testing Italians' patience with scandals that would have destroyed politicians in many other countries. The premier, meanwhile, used an interview with a magazine he owns to deny sexual misconduct, claiming he had never had 'relations with minors' and insisting that his dinner parties with young women were ' irreproachable for their morality and elegance'.
Berlusconi's office says he will go ahead with a trip to Libya next week, despite international protests over the hero's welcome there for Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing but freed on compassionate grounds.