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They keep pulling us back in!
The troubled Staten Island mob series “Families of the Mafia” will once again return to MTV after yet another overhaul, Page Six can exclusively reveal.
The program — which is executive produced by reputed Gambino soldier Sammy “The Bull” Gravano’s daughter, Karen Gravano — had previously been a simple reality show with a gangland twist. This time, however, the retooled “Families of the Mafia” will be presented as a true-crime docuseries centered around Staten Island clans with Mafia ties, Karen told Page Six.
“This is a multigenerational story that starts before me and it’s going on after me,” said Gravano, who will appear on the show with her dad and daughter, Karina Seabrook.
“So with that being said, it follows the stuff that my father has been through in his life, as we did on the last season,” she added. “But we kind of dig into it a little bit deeper this year because he pretty much opens up more. He’s doing a podcast and he’s kind of telling a lot more of his story.”
Former “Mob Wives” star Gravano, 49, noted that the “dark feel” of her dad’s story — in which he admitted to 19 murders but managed to avoid life in prison by testifying against fellow mobsters — called for it “to feel like a documentary.”
She also thought that her focus on prison reform required a more serious tone.
“Prison reform has always been something I’m very passionate [about],” she explained. “I am involved with a man who is currently incarcerated for drugs and I’ve been working on helping him get out of prison for the last five and a half years.”
She added that she hopes the show will educate people on the costs of a Mafia lifestyle.
“Growing up … I kind of only looked at it through a one-track mind and that was the experiences that I was going through,” she said. “But when you really start to sit down and understand the justice system and the laws that have been changing and kind of just opened my mind up to really understanding, this became something that I was very passionate about.”
Gravano first produced “Made in Staten Island” in 2019, but she was met with a local petition against the show. The series then pivoted to “Families of the Mafia” in April 2020.
MTV was sent a cease-and-desist letter from the company that owns “Mob Wives” that claimed copyright infringement after it premiered and the show mysteriously disappeared from the air.
In addition to the Gravanos, the show will follow Billy Cutolo Jr. — the son of once-powerful underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo — as he tries to get back to life with his family after their time in the witness protection program following his father’s murder.
Eli Kiperman, the son of Boris Nayfeld, who is known as one of New York’s most influential Russian mafia bosses, will also appear as he reunites with his father, who has been serving out his probation in Moscow.
The O’Toole family and the LaRocca family also appeared in the show’s first iteration — which was a rebrand of “Made in Staten Island — that premiered in April 2020.
“Families of the Mafia” returns to MTV on July 15 at 9 p.m. ET.
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