The TV cameras were told to ignore her and Austria's rich and powerful sought to avoid her. But amid all the bling on display at the Vienna Opera Ball, most eyes were still on the woman at the centre of the scandal plaguing Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Ruby, aka Karima el-Mahroug, made a scheduled appearance at Austria's ball of balls as an invited guest, causing a sensation most of the wealthy and influential guests present would have been happy to do without. State TV was initially ordered to avoid covering her, but with the Berlusconi scandal big news, she was hard to keep out of sight, let alone out of mind. Ruby's comments on the eve of the ball added to Vienna high society's bad case of nerves, according to Daily Mail.
For centuries, Vienna's high society has waltzed blissfully through wars, scandals and anarchists opposed to the moneyed decadence they think such events represent.