Victoria Gotti on Tabloid Battle and Crime Family Stigma

Aug. 24, 2005 — -- Victoria Gotti, daughter of late mob boss John Gotti, is used to controversy, and today she found herself embroiled in a tabloid war, which she responded to on "Good Morning America."

The New York Post claimed that Gotti never had breast cancer, suffered a heart attack or earned a law degree, as reported in the New York Daily News on Sunday. The Post said Gotti's story was a publicity ploy to promote the third season of her reality show, "Growing up Gotti."

"The story that broke Sunday was for the most part accurate," Gotti told "GMA." "The reporter was not lying. She was not embellishing. There were some things that were over-exaggerated."

The 42-year-old mother of three said she told the Daily News reporter she had a heart incident, not a heart attack. Gotti also said she did not have a law degree.

The matter of the breast cancer was more complicated, Gotti said.

"What I have is considered by most to be cancer," she said, adding she had precancerous cells. "They refer to it as non-invasive cancer. I like to say it is not [cancer] because I don't want to be labeled as having cancer, not that there is anything wrong with it."

The Gotti name recently has resurfaced in the New York papers several times. Gotti's brother, John A. "Junior" Gotti, 41, is accused of conspiring to silence a radio host as part of racketeering charges that could keep him in prison for up to 30 years. Prosecutors say the host was targeted after angering the Gambino crime family with his on-air tirades against late mob boss John "the Teflon Don" Gotti, who died in prison after being convicted of racketeering.

Victoria Gotti attended her brother's trial in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday to "let him know I am here for him."

The Gotti name and its association with the mafia is something Victoria Gotti said she has never escaped and wonders if she ever will.

"No matter what I do … it is going to loom in the background," she said. "It is what people most associate me with and it is something I don't think I can change. I can keep trying, but I don't know that I will."