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Joseph Gannascoli, better known as The Sopranos' gay mobster, is being taken to court by the maker of a diet pill he was paid to promote, but the actor says homophobia is the real reason for their lawsuit.
The company that makes the diet pill Stacker 2 filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming the TV star has been slacking in his job to promote their drug. Gannascoli, who played the closeted Vito Spatafore on The Sopranos , was paid $316,000 over the past 2 1/2 years to spread the word about Stacker 2.
"He was very difficult to work with all the time," Robert Occhifinto, president of NVE Pharmaceuticals, told The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
Gannascoli, who signed with another diet pill maker last month, countered Occhifinto's claims by telling The Star-Ledger , "I begged [NVE Pharmaceuticals] to do things, but they wouldn't. They didn't like [that] I was doing the gay thing." (The Advocate)
