But it is the latest in a long line of gaffes, inappropriate quips, sexist jokes and schoolboy pranks which have earned the Italian prime minister notoriety since he burst onto the political scene nearly 20 years ago.
His sense of humour has often landed him in trouble, both at home and abroad.
Here are 10 of his most memorable foot-in-mouth moments:
Nov 2010: "As always, I work without interruption and if occasionally I happen to look a beautiful girl in the face, it's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay," he told a meeting at a motorcycle industry show in Milan. Homosexual rights groups protested.
Oct 2010: A video emerged in the Italian media of Mr Berlusconi describing a fictional Jewish family agreeing to hide another Jew during the Holocaust, on condition that he pays 3,000 euros a day. He described a member of the family asking another: "Do you think we should tell him that Hitler is dead and the war is over?" Mr Berlusconi was strongly criticised by Jewish groups.
April 2009: The media tycoon yelled "Mr Obama!" during an offical photo call in Buckingham Palace during a meeting of G20 leaders. The Queen, looking irritated, turned round and asked: "Why does he have to shout?"
April 2009: During a visit to survivors of an earthquake in the central Abruzzo region, who were staying in emergency tents, Mr Berlusconi said: "They should see it like a weekend of camping."
Nov 2008: The Italian premier hailed Barack Obama as "handsome, young and also suntanned", after he was elected the United States' first black president.
June 2005: Mr Berlusconi bragged that he had used his charm to persuade Finland's president, Tarja Halonen, to give up her country's claim to host the new European Food Safety Authority. "I had to use all my playboy tactics, even if they have not been used for some time," he said. The Finnish ambassador to Rome protested.
Sept 2004: "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini sent people on holiday in (internal) exile," Mr Berlusconi told The Spectator, replying "yes" when asked if he thought the World War Two dictator was "benign".
July 2003: "Mr Schulz, I know there is in Italy a man producing a film on the Nazi concentration camps. I would like to suggest you for the role of kapo. You'd be perfect," Mr Berlusconi told Martin Schulz, a Socialist German MEP, who was heckling him during his debut at the European Parliament. A kapo was a concentration camp inmate who was given privileges for supervising prisoner work gangs, often brutally.
Feb 2002: During a group photograph at an informal EU summit in Spain, the media tycoon raised two fingers behind the head of the Spanish foreign minister, Josep Pique, in the traditional Latin gesture for a cuckold.
Oct 2001: Mr Berlusconi sparked an outcry in the Muslim world when he said the West should be aware of its own "superiority".
"We should be conscious of the superiority of our civilisation, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion," he said. "This respect certainly does not exist in the Islamic countries."
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