Ad Shilling To Die For

You may recall Joseph R. Gannascoli, who played the gay mafioso Vito Spatafore on HBO's The Sopranos. When Vito was discovered to be gay, the other mobsters beat him to death while sodomizing him with a pool cue. Now that the show is over, Gannascoli is capitalizing on his character's Louima-esque demise by teaming up with Rockwell Billiards to promote the sale of a pool cue with the tagline, "A Cue To Die For." The name of the cue is both a play on how Gannascoli was killed in The Sopranos and on the title of his new crime novel, A Meal To Die For.

GLAAD is not too happy about the pool cue campaign, with president Neil Guiliano saying, "It's highly inappropriate that what served as a very real example of the hateful violence the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community faces is now being used as a gimmick to sell a product. The insensitive inclusion of the pool cue in the 'To Die For' marketing theme betrays the legacy of The Sopranos character and is unacceptable." Gannascoli recently appeared on Celebrity Fit Club and is also marketing a luxury cigar line as "A Cigar To Die For."