Mobdaughter: New book by Karen Gravano

Mob Wives Star Karen Gravano: "Being a Gangster Was Like Being Brad Pitt in Hollywood"

By Becky Bartkowski

Apr. 13 2012

When mob heiress Karen Gravano was in her late teens, her father Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravano, who was second in command in the Gambino crime family, became an FBI informant and fed juicy bits of mafia info to hungry agents that eventually took down boss John Gotti.
And apart from Gravano's own brushes with the law (including involvement in her dad's Arizona ecstasy ring, for which he's now serving time in Colorado and Karen was put on probation), that scandal is what has defined her. And much like her father gave up mob secrets, Gravano gives up her own in her new memoir Mob Daughter.
Not that Gravano is a stranger to putting the spotlight on her family and its history.
Quite the contrary: Gravano is currently starring in the second season of Vh1's Mob Wives, a "Family"-friendly reality program that seems destined for a third season. In the vein of other spousal shows like Bravo's Real Housewives franchise and Vh1's Arizona-based Baseball Wives, the show features women with varying ties to organized crime including Renee Graziano, whose father is consigliere for the Bonanno family, and spinoff-worthy Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, a Staten Island bar owner whose late uncle was a high-ranking member of the Genovese family.
Gravano, who splits her time between New York and Arizona, talked with us about reality TV, her book, which she'll sign at Barnes & Noble on Satuday, April 14, and her relationship with her incarcerated father.

Read the rest of the interview here: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2012/04/mob_wives_karen_gravano_sammy_the_bull.php