Renee's Mob Candy Line: 'Everything a Mob Princess Would Wear'
Episode one of season four of “Mob Wives” began with a party in Philadelphia.
Renee hired a new model to work with her new clothing line.
What line is that, some of you may ask. Well, Mob Candy (by Renee Graziano) is the name of the brand she has been talking up and promoting on the Internet for the past year or so. It includes a a lot of products: Mob Candy Jewelry, Mob Candy Apparel , Mob Candy Shoes, and accessories and t-shirts.
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| Frank DiMatteo, owner, Mob Candy. |
Mob Candy magazine was in fact launched in 2007 by others with no ties to her then or now. Prior to the publication, the brand had originally been used for a line of Mafia-inspired clothing. But even before that, there was a company called Mob Candy that sold, well, candy...
Regular readers of this blog will remember when this issue first broke; Renee's fantasy about inventing the name and then launching a whole bunch of products as part of it was raised on the official blog of Mob Candy. [Disclosure: I write articles for Mob Candy magazine.].
Her supporters were quick to chirp: she copyrighted, she copyrighted, she copyrighted. As I said, that was never the point of the issue.
I would assume that Renee obviously managed to copyright the Mob Candy name on the products in her line, though I may be wrong about that. And the founder/owner/editor/publisher of Mob Candy, Frank DiMatteo, failed to do anything to interfere, as far as I know. But many people know about the move Renee pulled on Frank, and I'd go so far as to wager that many people--who keep a level head and apply common sense--can't help but come down on DiMatteo's side. I do, and not because I write for the guy--or that I hang out with him a lot and talk to him a lot, as well as the editor Nick Christophers. I, in fact, affectionately refer to him as "Uncle Frank."
I spoke with Frank today. I asked him--what's up with Renee and Mob Candy? He laughed and said, "I hope she advertises the hell out of it; she'll be helping to build even more brand equity for the name of my magazine." Frank indicated that he has plans of his own for the brand and that he has a partner in place. (More news on that coming soon.)
As we continued chatting, DiMatteo related that he once got a phone call from a guy calling for another guy calling for someone else ... light-hearted words were spoken -- but Frank got the message.
Frank knows something about the life--his father was a heavy hitter in the Colombo family back in the day, and Frank himself was a street guy for a while, thieving and partying with the legendary upstart Mafioso Joe Gallo, who was famously whacked inside a Little Italy eatery then owned by Matty the Horse Ianiello that still stands today: Umberto's Clam House.
So Frank knows how to deal with mobsters. Precisely what the call said to Frank or requested of Frank, the man won't say. But Frank still smiles often, says whatever is in his heart, and sleeps like a baby at night.
As noted, aside from originating as an actual candy company, Mob Candy, interestingly, was first launched as the name for a line of Mafia-inspired clothing owned by Tyrone Christopher. A chance encounter between Tyrone and magazine publisher DiMatteo (who published Screw many years back) led to the idea to create Mob Candy magazine, a glossy color magazine devoted to the gangster lifestyle with historical profiles about famous gangsters. (Which reminds me that I still have to finish my story on Giancana for Frank.)
Renee, in an interview in which she announced the new endeavor, said she was launching Mob Candy-branded jewelry, shoes and makeup. In addition to that, Renee claimed she created the brand, when it was only in 2011 that she had appeared on the very cover of Mob Candy Magazine. Renee actually included photos from the magazine shoot on her very own website.(The link is gone now, replaced with her Mob Candy online store, as you can see.)
"I love my Mob Candy," Renee said in another interview, the one which really drew the ire of some folk. "I love the name of it. It came about because I love color. Color changes your mood. And candy makes you feel better. And we can’t forget the mob part. So I put it all together. One day, I was sitting on the couch pigging out, eating M&M’s. I was thinking, “I’m fuckin’ getting fat,” and then I put the two words together. Mob Candy is a fun line; it’s shoes and jewelry and body lotions. It’s everything a mob princess would wear, without the cost."Why would she claim credit for creating the brand, when logic dictates she had to have heard about it since she posed for the cover and even includes images of the Mob Candy photo shoot on her website? Alls I can say is, we do know she had a problem with Percs and Xanny the Nanny. I'd chalk it up to that but as far as I know, she never retracted.
One solution for all that is going on--which Frank wouldn't really comment on specifically--would be that there are some problems between the parties. If I were to speculate, I'd say Renee got pissed off and decided to later make her move because Mob Candy issued no less than four covers during the month in which Renee appeared, an unorthodox move by the magazine that could have diluted the impact Renee was probably hoping to create by being on the cover in the first place.
MafiaLife Chris noted on the Mob Candy blog, "... We wanted Karen Gravano on the cover, if anything... " And so did the network VHI, he added. "[VH1 was] contacting us pushing the desire to film us doing a photoshoot with Karen Gravano, and interviews where I was given the ok to ask any tough questions to Karen."
So the magazine supposedly wanted Karen Gravano because they believed her name recognition was stronger than Graziano's, and VH1 made the proposition more attractive by saying they would film a Karen photo shoot. [Interesting in light of the recent departures of three of the show's cast members...]
So a likely scenario is: after thinking she was the cover model for the special "Mob Wives" issue of Mob Candy, Renee suddenly learned that the publication had produced four covers of the same exact issue -- same release date, same contents. (The other two cover photos were Love Majewski and Tony "Nap" Napoli.)
This could be the reason that Renee decided she would use the Mob Candy name on certain products that were available.
But I think she took this strategy too far when she started with the claims that she had created the brand itself.
But I think she took this strategy too far when she started with the claims that she had created the brand itself.
As Chris wrote: "Now, she goes on TV, and is promoting all over the Internet -- on blogs, and on her website about a Mob Candy shoe line? And Mob Candy Jewelry? That’s not even the half. Not only is she just using the brand name pretending she never heard of it before, she has also done interviews claiming the root of her Mob Candy name idea came into her head randomly after thinking about how she loves colors, and candy has different colors. And of course, she couldn’t forget to add the mob to it, right? That’s how she got the idea!
"Did she forget she was on the cover of a magazine titled Mob Candy way before she told her story about how she had some colorful idea for a new brand? Did she forget the ideas that we discussed with her production company in that business meeting? You tell me, are we crazy to be pissed? And, I am not talking about legalities here. I am not asking if what she did was legal or not. I am simply talking 100 percent on cold hard morality principle. What she did was wrong!"
I believe she is wrong for claiming credit for creating the brand; Renee makes herself look foolish by seeming to ignore reality.
And even if she copyrighted everything under the sun, it doesn't make what she did anything more than a shitty thing to do.