Old Mob Business Mars Big Ang's Memorial

 Mob Wives cast members Brittany Fogarty and Karen Gravano were asked not to attend Angela "Big Ang" Raiola's funeral yesterday.
Big Ang is making drinks at that big bar in the sky....

It was the kind of thing Big Ang wouldn't have condoned....

Mob Wives cast members Brittany Fogarty and Karen Gravano were asked not to attend Angela "Big Ang" Raiola's funeral yesterday.

A source with friends who attended the memorial service and funeral have said that a third  Mob Wife, Drita D'Avanzo, who showed up with two bodyguards, was asked to leave one of the memorial services.

However she can plainly be seen crying (accompanied by two big burly bodyguards wearing ear pieces) at the funeral.


With Britanny and Karen, what happened stemmed from "a decades-long feud between their fathers and other members of the organized crime ring," the New York Daily News's Confidenti@l noted.

This past weekend's memorial events, as well as yesterday's funeral were off limits to them ostensibly because their fathers flipped and testified against other mobsters decades ago.
Drita at funeral.

"There are going to be some people going to the service whose fathers may have been killed, or put away by their cooperation (with authorities)," Andrea Giovino told the News.

Brittany, 25, was reportedly extremely distraught over the news that she wasn't invited because she had felt close to Big Ang on the show.

"She's very upset," Giovino said. "She can't even talk on the phone. She's just been crying."

"They had a great relationship," she added. "Big Ang treated her like a daughter."

According to the Daily News, "Fogarty and Giovino were on their way to Saturday's visitation when producer Jennifer Graziano called to tell them that Big Ang's ex-husband didn't want them there, mostly because many of the other attendees were likely afflicted by their fathers' past actions."

Giovino said Ang's ex was likely influenced by others.

And although  she understood the context of the situation, her daughter "doesn't have a relationship with her father whatsoever" and is upset.

Big Ang died last Thursday at 55 after a battle with brain cancer.

"It's about Ang," Giovino said. "It's the respect for her. I feel bad (we) couldn't respect her and her family by going."

Giovino says she and her daughter will visit Big Ang's gravesite later this week.

A source told the News that the incident shows mob feuds such as these don't disappear.

"Its a bigger story than just them not going to funeral as it's a higher up mob order from the mafia code of a blood feud," the source said. "Brit and Karen are being rejected because of the sins of their fathers that ratted out other mobsters."

This source seems to be attempting to give  the show a "mob-approved" veneer with these remarks that simply isn't consistent with what's been reported.

The New York crime families have rejected the show, Jerry Capeci reported on Gangland News. In fact at least one Gambino capo was lauded for threatening to disown his daughter if she continued to appear on the show.

Another mobster was reportedly nearly beaten to death in prison because of an association with a cast member.

Anthony TG Graziano, father of Jennifer and Renee Graziano, was even shelved over his daughter's reality show.

Reported Gangland News:

"Anthony (TG) Graziano, a longtime Mafia powerhouse and the father of two of the show’s major players, has been stripped of all his mobster rights and responsibilities by irate Bonanno family leaders. In Mafia lingo, TG has been 'put on the shelf,' sources say."

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