Notorious mobster Salvatore ‘Sammy The Bull’ Gravano has joined the ranks of reality TV stars.
The former Gambino crime family underboss, who became a government witness and brought down the Teflon Don John Gotti, appears in MTV’s new series Families Of The Mafia that premieres Thursday night.
In a teaser for the show shared via Instagram Thursday, Sammy The Bull, 75, is seen in silhouette at his home in Arizona where he resides after being released from state prison in September 2017.
As the camera shows him from behind looking out of a large window, he says: ‘La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, it was a brotherhood, a secret society. It was a family just like my family.’
Gambino crime family underboss: Notorious mobster Salvatore ‘Sammy the Bull’ Gravano, 75, becomes a reality star in MTV’s new show Families Of The Mafia that premieres Thursday night
Families of The Mafia is executive produced by Sammy’s daughter Karen Gravano, 47, who starred in VH1’s Mob Wives and the short-lived MTV series Staten Island.
During the Gotti trial, Sammy admitted to being involved in the murders of 19 people but the new show seeks to portray him as a grandfather trying to re-establish a relationship with his 20-year-old granddaughter Karina Seabrook.
Sammy was arrested on federal and state drug charges in 2000 along with his wife Debra, daughter Karen and son Gerard and other members of the crime ring.
In 2002, he was sentenced in New York to twenty years in prison and a month later, he was also sentenced in Arizona to nineteen years in prison to run concurrently. He was released two years early in 2017.
Notorious: Sammy The Bull, pictured testifying under oath in Washington D.C. on April 1, 1993, turned government witness after being arrested in 2000 on federal and state drugs charges
Turned on the Mafia: His testimony brought down John Gotti, the Gambino crime family boss who was known as the Teflon Don (pictured in April 1986)
In the family: Sammy’s daughter Karen Gravano, 47, is an executive producer of the six-episode series in which she stars with her 20-year-old daughter Karina
Meanwhile, Karen, 47, seeks to encourage her daughter to escape the shadow of the mob past.
In a teaser video for Thursday’s premiere, she explains: ‘I just don’t want her to experience any negativity because of my family’s history.’
‘I’m not getting up here promoting, join the mob, join a gang. I’m here saying this is who I am, these are experiences I had in my life and this is the path I want to take to change it.’
Moving on: Karen hopes her daughter will escape the shadow of her mob past. ‘I just don’t want her to experience any negativity because of my family’s history,’ she says in the trailer
In the shadow of the mob: Karina was raised by her mother in Arizona until the age of 14 when Karen moved them back to New York’s Saten Island where the Gravanos have lived for 40 years
Karen is then seen going to visit her mobster father in Arizona.
With his reputation now one of being a ‘rat’, he fears for the safety of his daughter and granddaughter if they remain in Staten Island and wants them to move back to Arizona, where Karen raised Karina until she was 14.
He tells Karen: ‘The only way I won’t help you is if I’m dead. I will die for you.’
The Gravano family has lived on New York’s Staten Island for 40 years and it’s also home to other mob families including the O’Tooles, the Augustines and the LaRoccas who are featured on the show.
Cameras followed them for two years and what transpired will be shown over six episodes.
Family: In the trailer, Karen goes to visit her dad at his home in Arizona where he’s lived since being released from prison in September 2017
Vow: With a reputation now one of being a ‘rat’, Sammy fears for the safety of his daughter and granddaughter. He tells Karen: ‘The only way I won’t help you is if I’m dead. I will die for you’