John Gotti, the Last Mafia Icon

Victoria Gotti

Victoria Gotti is not the typical mob princess. She is an attractive woman, mother of three teenage boys, author of several books and the subject of a new reality show. She has leveraged her father's mob boss career into a profitable business.

Not only that American Media has made her editor-in chief of a new celebrity lifestyle magazine called Red Carpet

Blunt, outspoken and very tough, she has a lot of her father's talents, but, unlike John Gotti, used in legitimate pursuits.

The reviews of her latest entrepreneurial venture have been mixed. "Growing up Gotti," says the New York Times, "is a one-joke novelty item, but it is at times quite funny and Ms. Gotti is an oddly compelling figure...raising three loutish teenage boys on a sprawling, deliciously vulgar Long Island estate."

Victoria Gotti's three sons

``Growing up with my father, I was very sheltered,'' she told BostonHerald.com. ``My father was very, very strict with us. He wouldn't allow anyone to curse in front of any women. He was old-fashioned. I had a midnight curfew until I got married. I was very protected.''

"So are her sons, and though Gotti knows celebrity can wreak havoc on even the most level-headed, she's not worried. Plus, the boys don't want to be famous. Carmine is going to Harvard to become a criminal attorney, John wants to be a writer and Frank wants to be a chef,'' she said.

Comparisons to Carmella Soprano are inevitable, but she told the Associated Press that she never watches the popular show.

"I just find it offensive," she said. "Forget the mob stuff, it's the way the women walk around cracking gum and talking about trivial nonsense. Italian women are stunning and cultured, and they're smart. It doesn't portray them like that."

She maintains that she does not stay in touch with her brother John Jr. who is chronically in trouble with the feds. It was bad enough to have an ex-husband, Carmine Agnello, whose racketeering landed him in jail for a long stretch. She doesn't' need role models like those with three growing sons.