Sit Down with Michael Franzese

Michael Franzese
  • 4.7 (99)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

From a high-ranking member of the Colombo crime family to a man transformed by faith, Michael Franzese shares his extraordinary journey like no one else can. In Sit Downs with Michael Franzese, Michael dives into raw, unfiltered stories from his life in the mob, his path to redemption, and the lessons he’s learned about faith, family, and overcoming life’s struggles. With gripping interviews and practical insights, this podcast will inspire, challenge, and entertain

  1. 1d ago

    Former Mob Boss Ranks the Top 10 Richest Mobsters Ever

    📲 Text me your pick for top 10 richest mobsters: https://my.community.com/michaelfranzese (424) 325 0921 ✅ Take Control of Your Money and claim $10 in US Stablecoin (USD₮)! Download now at http://wallet.rumble.com/InnerCircle and use the code InnerCircle10. 🍷 Have you tried my wine yet?: https://yt.franzesewine.com/ In 1986, Fortune magazine put out a list of the 50 biggest mafia bosses in America — a Fortune 500 for my world. I was number 18. The youngest man on the list. I found out about it sitting in a federal prison in Arizona, when the lieutenant called me into his office and locked me down for a week over it. Here’s the thing, people — they got it wrong. Those were journalists guessing from the outside. They never saw the cash. They didn’t know who was kicking up to who. And in our world, the smartest earners were invisible on purpose. So today you’re getting the list they couldn’t write: the 10 richest mobsters of all time, ranked by a guy who was on the inside, knew how the money actually moved, and made the list himself. Capone, Lansky, Luciano, Costello, Carlo Gambino, Fat Tony, Marcello, Trafficante, Rothstein and Gotti — and I’ll tell you my number one and exactly why it’s not close. And yes, I answer the question you’re all going to ask: where would I rank on that list, and what it really cost me. Tell me in the comments who I got wrong — if somebody makes a good enough case, we’ll do a part two. Former Mob Boss Ranks the Top 10 Richest Mobsters Ever 00:00 The List Fortune Magazine Couldn't Write 00:52 1986 — They Locked Me Down Over That Article 02:18 I Was #18. The Youngest Man on the List. 02:44 Why They Got It Wrong 03:30 My Father's Reaction 05:08 Nobody Really Knows the Numbers — Here's Why 06:55 Arnold Rothstein — He Made Crime a Business 07:46 Al Capone — $100 Million in the 1920s 08:46 Lucky Luciano — The Architect 10:02 Meyer Lansky — "Bigger Than U.S. Steel" 11:02 Frank Costello — The One I Modeled Myself After 12:14 Carlo Gambino — The Richest Man You Never Heard About 13:34 Fat Tony Salerno — Fortune Said #1. I Disagree. 16:33 "Give These Mamalukes a Job" — My Day With Fat Tony 19:10 Carlos Marcello — Half of Louisiana Answered to Him 20:06 Santo Trafficante — The Mob's Foreign Minister 21:01 John Gotti — The Flash Is What Kills You 22:33 "What About You, Michael?" 23:06 The Jet, the Helicopter & the Houses 24:07 What It Actually Cost Me 26:15 My #1 — And It's Not Close 28:12 My #2 30:02 The Only Wealth That Lasts #Mafia #AlCapone #MeyerLansky #JohnGotti #MichaelFranzese #Mob #Top10 Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. 3d ago

    Face to Face With My Brother — The Son Who Testified Against Our Father (Part 2)

    📲 Text me your thoughts about this Interview: https://my.community.com/michaelfranzese (424) 325 0921 ✅ Take Control of Your Money and claim $10 in US Stablecoin (USD₮)! Download now at http://wallet.rumble.com/InnerCircle and use the code InnerCircle10. 🍷 Have you tried my wine yet?: https://yt.franzesewine.com/ People, last week my brother and I went back to the beginning. This week we get to the part you’ve been waiting for — and I’m going to let him tell it himself. Why John wore a wire on our father. Not the version you’ve read, not the version the papers wrote. His. He walks me through all of it: the meeting in 1995, what he was told about mom and dad getting re-indicted, what he thought he was doing for our father, the money they paid him — $600 a month, he was living under the poverty line — the device they wanted to put under his skin, and the moment he heard what they wanted done to somebody and knew he couldn’t be part of it. And then there’s my father. Dad telling him “if it was the other way around, you’d have done it to me.” Dad telling him “we don’t kill our family.” I’ll be honest with you — there are things in this conversation that disappointed me in my own father, and I say so out loud for the first time. We also get into the day John got sober and everything changed, the years I didn’t know where he was, and how a guy from our old neighborhood ends up as his friend in California. You can call my brother whatever you want. Hear him out first. Face to Face With My Brother — The Son Who Testified Against Our Father (Part 2) This is Part 2 of 3. Part 3 drops next week. #MichaelFranzese #JohnFranzese #SonnyFranzese #FranzeseFamily #MobFamily Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. Sep 17

    Face to Face With My Brother — The Son Who Testified Against Our Father (Part 1)

    📲 Text me your thoughts about this Interview: (424) 325 0921 People, I’ve told my story for over 30 years. Today you’re going to hear the side of it I couldn’t tell — because I didn’t live it. My brother John is finally at my table. Same house, same father, same life... seen from the other side. You may know his story — and believe me, we’re going to get to ALL of it — but it starts where WE started: growing up as Sonny Franzese’s sons. I can’t sit down with my father anymore. So this sit-down, with his other son, might be the most important one I ever do. John takes full responsibility for everything in his life — he’s never made excuses. And in this one he tells me things even I didn’t know: the truth about our mother — I say some things about her I’ve never said publicly — the night dad went to jail, the prison visits he hated, the day dad told him “there’s no shame in crying,” his 16-year war with addiction and the rehab he walked out of on day 88, our sister Gia, and the conversation where I begged our father to see what was happening to his son — and he couldn’t. This is Part 1 of 3. Part 2 drops next week — and that’s where we get into the part of John’s story you think you know. If you or someone you love is fighting addiction — my brother is living proof it can be beaten. Don’t give up on them. Face to Face With My Brother — The Son Who Testified Against Our Father (Part 1) #MichaelFranzese #JohnFranzese #SonnyFranzese #FranzeseFamily #Addiction #MobFamily Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. Sep 15

    My Daughter Finally Opens Up: The Tragedy, the Healing & Her Wedding Day

    🍷 Join me in the next video with a glass of wine: https://yt.franzesewine.com/ ✅ Take Control of Your Money and claim $10 in US Stablecoin (USD₮)! Download now at http://wallet.rumble.com/InnerCircle and use the code InnerCircle10. 📧Inquiries: julia@michaelfranzese.com People, this one is emotional for me. Four years ago, my youngest daughter Julia went through the unthinkable — she lost someone she loved, in our own home, to a pill laced with fentanyl. When she sat down with me back then, she could barely talk about it. Today, my little princess is back at this table — as a married woman. And I had the privilege of officiating the wedding myself. We talk about everything: the three years where she was surviving instead of living, why she refused to settle, how her faith carried her when she couldn’t hear God at all, the moment Tyler walked in — and why she almost passed on him — what marriage has already changed, and the conversation about fathers, daughters and what a man owes his family that I know some of you are going to blow me up for. Good. Tell me in the comments. If you or someone you love is struggling with loss or addiction, please — talk to somebody. That’s part of why we share this story. #MichaelFranzese #JuliaFranzese #FentanylAwareness #Faith #family Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. Sep 11

    Former Mob Boss Ranks the Top 10 Mob TV Shows Ever Made

    🍷 Join me in the next video with a glass of wine: https://yt.franzesewine.com/ People, a couple of years ago I ranked mob movies and shows together — today, it’s TELEVISION ONLY. The top 10 organized crime shows ever made, ranked by a guy who lived what they filmed. I knew Joe Colombo personally. I knew the real guys these characters are based on. So when I tell you a show got it right — or got it dead wrong — I’m not guessing, people. I was there. All ten are on the board: the giant that started it all, the rawest Italian crime show ever put on TV, the one that isn’t even a mob show but HAD to make my list, an old-school deep cut most of you have never even heard of — and Tulsa King placed somewhere you wouldn't expect. I know some of you are going to blow me up for that. Good. Tell me why I’m wrong in the comments, give me YOUR number one, and tell me what I left off. And stick around after the rankings — I get into which shows actually capture the life, and my honest problem with how some of them use violence. Best and worst. No mercy. Salute.🍷 #TheSopranos #TulsaKing #Mafia #MobShows #PeakyBlinders #MichaelFranzese Former Mob Boss Ranks the Top 10 Mob TV Shows Ever Made 🤝 Book 1 on 1 Call With Me: https://michaelfranzese.com/book-1-on-1-call/ 🔥 Check out my store: https://store.michaelfranzese.com/ 🎙️ Michael Franzese Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Eo39qb 📧 Interested in partnerships? partnerships@michaelfranzese.com Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Sep 8

    Democrat Insider Reveals Dark Truth About Who Controlled Biden, His Decline & Why They Hid It

    People, Lindy Li raised MILLIONS for the Democratic Party. She was in the rooms almost nobody gets into — and what she told me, face to face, is worse than anything you’ve heard. The President of the United States, who’d known her for a decade, told her “tell your husband I said hi.” Lindy has never been married. Staff confiscated her phone in a ziplock bag every time she got near him — so nobody could show the world his condition. The family doctor vouched for his fitness out of LOYALTY, not medicine. And the chief strategist was paid $4 MILLION — with another $4 million coming if they duped the American people into thinking Biden was fit. That’s not a campaign, people. That’s an operation. And I know an operation when I see one. We get into who was really making the decisions, why Jill pushed him to run — Lindy calls it what it is — the media blacklist and the 3 A.M. slot they punished her with, what she handed over to Congress that you’ll hear about here FIRST, and her honest verdicts on Kamala, Newsom, AOC and the party she finally walked away from. 📖 Her new book tells the whole story — get it here: https://a.co/d/01AsSmCl 00:00:00 "Funding a Vegetable" — What You're About to Hear 00:01:03 Welcome, My Friends — I've Got a Confession to Make 00:05:22 My Confession — Why You Need to Hear Her Out 00:10:43 What Walking Away Cost Her 00:14:02 Being a Christian Inside the Democrat Party 00:18:43 The mRNA Push — And the 10-Year Fauci Pardon 00:20:32 He Pardoned His Whole Family Too 00:21:44 Jill Knew — "That's Not Love" 00:22:20 "This Is Elder Abuse" 00:23:13 She Was in the Room on Debate Night 00:23:54 "Tell Your Husband I Said Hi" — She's Never Been Married 00:27:30 $4 MILLION to Keep the Lie Alive 00:28:06 "Our Country Was Collateral Damage for the Biden Family" 00:30:51 The Media Knew Her Well — Until She Spoke Up 00:32:09 The 3 A.M. Slot — How They Punished Her 00:36:16 Her Great-Grandfather Was Murdered by Communists 00:37:05 Her War With AOC — "A Classic Bully" 00:38:30 Kamala & Willie Brown — I Can Back That Up 00:39:30 "I Was Duped by Obama" 00:40:12 The BLM Mansion — Grievance Grifters 00:44:44 What the Party Really Said About the Border 00:45:27 $150 Billion a Year — The Permanent Majority Plan 00:48:17 $39 Trillion in Debt — Who Pays for the Wars? 00:51:43 Newsom — I've Been His Biggest Critic 00:54:43 She's Dealt With Newsom Personally — "It's Worse" 00:56:25 His Best Friend's Wife — That Tells You Everything 00:59:49 Shapiro Stripped Her Commission — No Call, No Text 01:00:37 Socialists in Power — I Never Thought I'd See It 01:04:27 9/11 — They Took Our Innocence 01:05:25 Her Book — The Forrest Gump of the Democrat Party 01:07:01 They Confiscated Her Phone Around Biden — Every Time 01:07:39 What She Handed Congress — You're Hearing It FIRST 01:10:30 I Know the RICO Statute — My Take on the Investigation 01:12:49 "I Think He's Dying" — Her Honest Word on Joe 01:13:09 Hunter Is a Different Story 01:21:18 Credit Where It's Due — The Border Today 01:23:21 Her Book, Her Loss & Why She Wrote It 01:28:16 Song of Solomon 8:7 — Until Next Time #LindyLi #Biden #MichaelFranzese #CoverUp #Democrat #Insider Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. Sep 4

    Former Mob Boss Interviews Mark Wahlberg About Playing Greg Scarpa in 'By Any Means'

    🍷 Join me in the next video with a glass of wine: https://yt.franzesewine.com/ ✅ Take Control of Your Money and claim $10 in US Stablecoin (USD₮)! Download now at http://wallet.rumble.com/InnerCircle and use the code InnerCircle10. People, I knew the real Greg Scarpa. We were in the same family — I was close with him, and his son Greg Jr. and I were made on the same night. So when Mark Wahlberg sits down with me after playing Scarpa in “By Any Means,” I told him straight to his face: you made him look NICER than he actually was. We get into everything: who Greg Scarpa really was behind the movie version, the story of a mob killer working with the FBI to take down the Ku Klux Klan, what I now believe REALLY happened with the Colombo shooting — and it’s not what everybody thinks — whether Persico knew Scarpa was informing all those years, Mark’s dad playing the numbers back in the day, his faith and why he never hides it, and the question this whole movie hangs on: who’s worse, the mob or the Klan? And is the government ever right to use one monster to catch another? “By Any Means” opens in theaters Friday, September 4th. It’s dark, it’s violent — but that’s exactly who Greg Scarpa was. Go see it, then come back and tell me if I’m wrong. And stay tuned, people — my sit-down with my friend Greg Scarpa Jr. is coming next, and after that, my full review of the movie. Former Mobster Who Knew Greg Scarpa Grades Mark Wahlberg's Performance — To His Face I Was a Capo With the Real Greg Scarpa. I Told Mark Wahlberg How He Really Did. 0:00 — I Told Mark He Made Him Look Nicer Than He Really Was 1:25 — My Sit-Down With Mark Wahlberg 2:37 — Who's Worse — the Mob or the Klan? 3:28 — Mark Almost Played Scarpa Once Before 3:55 — What Really Happened the Day Joe Colombo Got Shot 5:03 — The Guys Scarpa Killed Using FBI Information 6:29 — What the Government Did to Him in Prison 7:37 — I Told Mark Somebody Wants to Play Me 8:20 — His Next Movie Is on Pete Rose 10:19 — My Dad Lived to Play the Numbers 11:14 — The Day They Stole My Hub Caps at the Track 11:49 — Mark's Faith and His Jailhouse Tattoo 14:14 — My Honest Take After Sitting Down With Him 18:36 — Jack Ruby, JFK, and What I Was Told 19:24 — Lucky Luciano and the War Effort 20:24 — How the FBI Used Scarpa to Solve the KKK Murder 21:44 — What I Was Told About Marilyn Monroe 23:00 — The Mob or the Klan — Who's Really Worse? 24:04 — Where the "Italians Are Racist" Myth Started 26:36 — Why Mark's Faith Moved Me 30:26 — Go See "By Any Means" #MarkWahlberg #GregScarpa #ByAnyMeans #MichaelFranzese #Mafia #Colombo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. Sep 1

    Ex-CIA Agent Reveals the Spy Skills That Give You an Unfair Advantage

    It’s not often I bring a guest back — but after our first sit-down hit over a million and a half views, Andrew Bustamante earned his seat at my table twice. Ex-CIA intelligence officer. His wife? Also CIA. And this time he brought his new book — and people, I don’t take notes on books. I took notes on this one. We get into the spy skills they don’t teach you anywhere else: how to detect a lie from a trained interrogator’s perspective, why you should trust NO ONE until they earn it — something the CIA and my old life agree on completely — how the CIA recruits people and how you can use the same psychology, the three resources that actually matter, and why there really is a system behind the system. An unfair advantage isn’t an illegal advantage, people. It’s only unfair to those who don’t have it. Now you can have it. Ex-CIA Agent Reveals the Spy Skills That Give You an Unfair Advantage Backbone Media Group 00:00:00 Introduction00:04:40 Interview Start00:11:41 Knowledge, Experience, Intelligence00:19:01 Japanese Screen Culture01:34:15 Outro Backbone Media Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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4.7
out of 5
99 Ratings

About

From a high-ranking member of the Colombo crime family to a man transformed by faith, Michael Franzese shares his extraordinary journey like no one else can. In Sit Downs with Michael Franzese, Michael dives into raw, unfiltered stories from his life in the mob, his path to redemption, and the lessons he’s learned about faith, family, and overcoming life’s struggles. With gripping interviews and practical insights, this podcast will inspire, challenge, and entertain

Information

  • Creator
    Michael Franzese
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    172
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Michael Franzese. All Rights Reserved. "Sit Down with Michael Franzese".
  • Show Website
    Sit Down with Michael Franzese

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