I’m not afraid to admit that one of my rock bottoms for reality TV was Mob Wives. The Staten Island women only solidified why I never wanted to journey out to Todt Hill. As VH1 viewers learned, there was a price to pay when married to a mobster. And the bill came due for so many of them who watched their family spend time behind bars. But these women were no rats and kept their lives at home on the down low. The cast, including Karen Gravano, were long-time friends with strong ties to organized crime. But as the frowned upon daughter of Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, Karen had an uphill battle.
Karen’s story
Viewers met Karen when she tried to reclaim her life in New York after having to relocate to Arizona. When Karen was a teenager, her father became an FBI informant when he was second in command of the Gambino crime family. Sammy fed juicy tidbits to the agents and eventually played a big part in helping take down John Gotti. Naturally, when word on the street got around, Karen and her family were in danger. Karen got into trouble of her own. Including her part in her father’s Arizona ecstasy ring, but she wanted to try and move back to the island. So she did.
After a ten-year exile, Karen wasn’t exactly welcomed back with open arms. The series showed her quite a bit on the outs with the other women who couldn’t get over what her father had done. As we know, cooperating with the feds is worse than death for some of these long-time crime family members, and naturally, if they couldn’t take their anger out on Sammy, Karen was the next best target. But eventually it seems she was welcomed back into the tight-knit community, though she still had her moments when she had to put up or shut up.
Karen embraced everything Mob Wives
After six seasons, Mob Wives finally ended, but Karen kept chasing her fame and really used that mob wife aesthetic to keep earning her paychecks. In the months following the series cancellation, Karen and her then-partner, Storm, appeared on WEtv’s Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars for the show’s eighth season. The drama was at an all-time high, and the two ultimately called it quits after realizing they weren’t made for one another. Karen then reportedly started dating Xavier Williams, who is currently serving a life sentence. Karen once told In Touch, “Our love for each other has grown stronger and stronger and stronger. And he’s definitely someone that I want to be in my life forever. We don’t focus on the relationship as much as we focus on his freedom.”
I also remember that she and her father, with the help of her daughter, Karina, also filmed a short pilot for MTV in 2017 called Families of the Mafia. I was so sad to see Karina playing the tough girl because, during Mob Wives, she was so studious and loved volleyball. The show didn’t last, and the network tried to rebrand in 2020 with a new storyline about those who were still involved in the mob back on Staten Island. Karen was noted as an executive producer for the show.
What is Karen up to now?
Not surprising anyone since these days everyone has one; Karen, too, started her own podcast entitled, The Sitdown Podcast. And you guessed it; she talks about her family’s tie to the mob and her feud with some of her former costars. In 2012, Karen penned a book, Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and Me, which made it to the New York Times Best Seller list. Karen also isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty…with flour. She opened up a pizza joint in Totowa, New Jersey, called Pizza Nostra, and the reviews aren’t half bad.
TELL US – WOULD YOU WANT TO SEE KAREN ON A REBOOT OF MOB WIVES?
