Karen Gravano, a former star of the reality TV show Mob Wives, has filed a lawsuit against the makers of the hit video game Grand Theft Auto V for $40 million, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
Karen Gravano, the daughter of Salvatore ‘Sammy the Bull’ Gravano, says the character, Antonia Bottina, in the game, is based on her life.
Gravano’s attorney,Thomas Farinella, claimed in the Manhattan Supreme Court that “Notwithstanding the fact that plaintiff has the utmost respect for the writers and creators of the Grand Theft Auto V video game… her story is unique and is hers to tell.”
According to an online description of GTA V, the character, Bottina, refers to a murder charge that was pinned on her father and how the family was forced to be “moving around safe houses in rat-hole hick towns where no one comes looking.”
In the game her father, Sammy Bottino, refuses to allow her to participate in a TV show called Wise Bitches , which Gravano says is similar to the show Mob Wives in which she used to star.
Although Karen Gravano played in the first three seasons of the TV series, the New York Daily News reported that she was fired last December before the start of the new season.
Grand Theft Auto V, from Rockstar Games , became the fastest entertainment product to gross $1 billion, which it reached by the third day after launch.
The lawsuit says that the game producers could have sought Gravano’s permission “with relative ease, which may have (averted) this action.” She is seeking $20 million in compensation and another $20 million in punitive damages.
A spokesman for the video game company said: “We do not comment on legal matters.”