Cosa Nostra News

UPDATED It could've been a scene on reality television...  Mob Wives creator  Jennifer Graziano and  Carla Facciolo, star   of the VH1 cultural touchstone Mob Wives, which was cancelled, pay  a terminally ill  Angela (Big Ang) Raiola  a hospital visit. Bi g Ang debuted in season two and early on was a fan favorite... Where are our favorite ladies from the last season finale? At some point during the hospital visit, Big Ang told the two women, from her hospital bed, what's highlighted as a seemingly selfless and rousing admonition.  "T he show must go on," she said .... Big Ang was suffering from cancer and died after filming of the sixth and final season of Mob Wives in 2016. That's the scenario described in a recent Staten Island Advance report. However, Big Ang's sister, Janine Detore, blasted the Mob Wives reboot in an interview of her own , as well as a YouTube video, below. Detore, owner of the Country Mouse , a children's clo...

Brittany Fogarty In the past year, I've talked to a few mob wives -- by that I mean woman married to made guys. The general consensus about VH1's Mob Wives is that the women are a disgrace and an embarrassment to all Italian-Americans. Some are even "frauds," "rats" and "whores." One source said something that resonated:

"One thing about us wiseguys, the hustle never ends...." In "College," Tony brutally murders a rat, Fabian Petrulio.  Tony Soprano whispers those words to Fabian Petrulio (aka Frederick Peters, a former member of the fictional New Jersey mob family, who flipped.) The two -- Tony and Fred -- had been effectively hunting each other for the past day. Fabian blew his chance to kill Tony the night before at the motel where the New Jersey mob boss was staying with his tiny young daughter. Too many witnesses. The next morning however he was still trying. Petrulio (or Peters) tries to hire a junkie to kill both Tony and his daughter. "Gray Lincoln town car. New model." But not even a junkie and his girlfriend will cross that line. They are not going to commit murder. Fred Peters then begins to work the phone (our rat hasn't changed much since Witness Protection. He deals drugs and participated in an arson...) It is precisely this ambiguity which Da...

Big Ang prior to plastic surgery, pre-Mob Wives.... Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, star of the VH1 reality series "Mob Wives,"  died early Thursday morning as she was fighting lung and brain cancer. She was 55. Widely known for her raspy voice, larger-than-life personality (plus humongous bustline), and of course her apparent propensity for plastic surgery, she was one of the very few Mob Wives stars to be universally loved by fans. This blog often referred to her as the show's conscience, as well as its raspy voice of reason.

An anonymous source who knows a lot about VH1's Mob Wives cast members recently contacted us. What annoys her (she's a true "Mob Wife") is the idea that some of the women on Mob Wives may actually serve as role models for young women. "First off, understand:  They are not  Mob Wives . None of them ." The "old" cast is new... almost. "They are all liars and everyone on Staten Island has no respect for them. And how they chased her father because of the show!

VH!'s reality show is in the block EXPANDED Mob Wive s will have a new owner -- and it's ITV, the same broadcaster that aired the recent Mafia with Trevor McDonald two-part series, one of the most watched non-scripted shows in Britain. It featured John Alite , the topic of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia , among other former mobsters. What a sale means for Mob Wives and its viewers is open to debate, as The Weinstein Company will continue to manage its television division though it is "in the process of selling [it] to ITV, the British broadcaster that has been on a buying spree of late," as  The Hollywood Reporter  revealed today. The deal's value could be worth $950 million. It involves an up-front payment of around $400 million with "an escalating package of compensation and bonuses that would nearly triple the initial purchase price," sources told THR.

"I love the name of it. It came about because I love color. Color changes your mood." Renee on her "invention" of the Mob Candy brand, after she posed for this picture. EXCLUSIVE: Both VH1 and Jennifer Graziano today received cease-and-desist letters from an attorney regarding Renee Graziano's continued use of the Mob Candy name on items for which she does not have the rights, according to a source close to the case who sent us a copy of the two letters. Noting that Renee had ignored previous letters sent to her, the copyright holders' law firm is putting both the " Mob Wives " network and Jennifer Graziano herself on notice that the firm has been "instructed to begin legal action against you if you allow these infringements to continue."

Exclusive: Mob Wives Creator Jennifer Graziano Criminal Past + Did Renee Graziano Reject Her Bi Racial Nephew? - Reality TV Scandals : The thrust of the story is that, during a sentencing hearing years ago, Mob Wives creator Jennifer Graziano's lawyer revealed that: "Jennifer’s family did not accept her biracial child who was only two years old because he was not white. Get all of the details and  click to read ...   "The court document is a good read; the prosecutor slams the claim of Jennifer Graziano‘s “psychological problems” by revealing Jenn has a master degree in Psychology."

Make sure you are watching at the 10 minutes 35 seconds part....from April.... REVISED, INCLUDES BACKLINKS:  " Mob Wives " season five is slated to commence in December. How is Vito Rizzuto involved in this story? Keep reading.... Check out the above video of Sway interviewing Renee and Jennifer Graziano . I had never listened to or even heard of Sway: I think he's pretty damn good. He comes off all folksy and polite and supportive to kind of disarm the guests. The questions he poses are quite relevant. He's asking about the right stuff -- and not really getting any answers. The Grazianos chose this forum to bolster sales of their cookbook, the one with Meat Cleaver in the title.

AllAboutTRH EXCLUSIVE  is reporting that, except for Alicia DiMichele , the rest of last year's case began filming season five of Mob Wives last week. "There are no new cast members." "Our source reveals: "The ladies first day of filming began Thursday. All the ladies are back except Alicia DiMichele . As of right now, there are no new cast members, but they are still bugging Alicia in hopes that she’ll come back. There is talk that Jenn Graziano is trying to bring in Karen Gravano because Renee Graziano has nobody that’ll fight for her. Big Ang isn’t going to do her dirty work, and they know Karen needs the money and is willing to do it." In other Mob Wives news, The Daily News reported earlier this week that The suspect involved in a fatal fight outside the Staten Island bar owned by reality television star Angela (Big Ang) Raiola turned himself in to cops, authorities said Tuesday.

VH1’s Mob Wives' star Renee Graziano and her sister Jennifer Graziano (who is also the series creator and showrunner), visited Maria Menounos’ online media network AfterBuzz TV to discuss jealousy among the cast, how “real” the reality show fights with new cast members, fear of her father and ex-husbands reactions to the show and an upcoming romantic comedy film project on AfterBuzz TV’s in-depth interview series “Spotlight On.” The latest season of Mob Wives: New Blood featured a mix of old and new cast members, with the addition of two new wives and the loss of former series stars Karen Grazano, Carla Facciolo and Ramonoa Rizzo. Renee commented on the new editions, saying “there’s a lot of jealousy with those woman right now, I’m really ahead of the game. And here’s how I see it. If there was a 5 lane high way, we can all get to our destination as fast as we want if we only stay in our lane. But the second you try to swerve into somebody else’s lane, you cause traffic, you cau...

Karen Gravano may have been on to something when she said someone wanted her off the show. But according to a source who spoke with Cosa Nostra News on condition of anonymity, that someone is Lee D'Avanzo , not Eddie Garofalo. Lee and Drita D'Avanzo. We wrote in a previous post  that Alicia DiMichele 's husband, Edward "Tall Guy" Garofalo, is "figuring to be a major star" in the upcoming season. This was based on a Jerry Capeci story in which Karen Gravano was the source (there were two other sources, but only Karen went on record). Karen had a theory about why Jennifer had revamped most of the cast of "Mob Wives" -- supposedly to make DiMichele and Garofalo's former marriage a centerpiece of the show. The Tall Guy has been in jail for three years and will soon head off to prison to serve his seven years  sentence . Alicia learns her fate in January, as we noted . According to Karen, it was the Tall Guy who secured his wife a ...

  Mob Wives Chicago was cancelled for a variety of reasons, foremost among them the cast members' lack of credible ties to the mob -- or the Outfit, the name by which the organized crime entity is better known in the Windy City. Carla and soon-to-be-former husband. It could be argued that really only one Chicago mob wife, Nora, had legit ties -- primarily through her deceased former-hit man father. The bottom line: None of the other women were mob wives in that they were not married or otherwise related to bona fide members of the Outfit (which says a lot about the Outfit, and how seriously even its women honor old-world codes). With the case of "Mob Wives" New York, that was seemingly less of an issue among some of the women, many of whom have very real ties to the "honored society" via husbands and/or fathers -- and it seems to have had very real repercussions on a heavyweight mobster who at one time was consiglieri for the Bonanno family, J...

TG Graziano One cover story has collapsed, but another one may be in place. [Or perhaps speculating on the machinations of a reality TV show that blurs the line between La Cosa Nostra, a members'-only secret society built on stealing money, and the rest of the world is a fool's game.] I just don't know -- but I do know that I dig immersing myself in this stuff and writing about it. Patrick Parrotta, TG Graziano’s attorney, recently gave an interview outside the courthouse, insisting everything was fine between Graziano and his Mob Wives daughters, daughter Renee's comments on the show, which was filmed last year, notwithstanding. While Renee stars in the show, it is the brainchild of sister Jennifer. Parrotta stated, “[TG] does not hold what Hector did against his daughters.” His lawyer further asserted that any animosity Graziano may have had about VH1′s hit show is in the past. “There’s no estrangement, everybody’s talking,” Parrotta said. This po...