Mob Queens Podcast Review

2 min readAug 5, 2022

The Pitch:

A True Crime mob story that’s not all about the guys.

The Product:

True Crime has been done to death, so to speak, but there are still a lot of shallow graves of content to dig up in the genre. This is especially the case for the ‘other’ characters in history, who often don’t get the attention their story warrants.

And of course we’re using the word ‘other’ with it’s full, modern day meaning. If I need to use a blunt instrument, it’s anyone who doesn’t fit the interpretation of the norm.

Enter Jessica Bendinger and Michael Seligman, who have a doozy of a story to tell about the Mob in New York. Except this time it’s not about one of the guys, it’s about Anna Genovese, a drag club maven, entrepreneur, and mob wife.

A story unfolds episode by episode, as the hosts explore Anna’s life. But this story is a box of tangled Christmas lights, haphazardly stored on a high shelf by your drunk uncle. It’s complex, and the hosts grapple with those untidy parts of the story, often in real time.

This podcast has a lot going on. At times it’s freewheeling banter between two extremely charismatic friends. But it’s still a story set in or adjacent to a brutal and unforgiving world of crime. The hosts are also relentless in their pursuit of information, and they document this with recordings spliced into episodes. It’s good journalism, but it’s not the chillest listen you’ll find.

It’s got a little something for everyone. An unlikely intersection of the mafia and drag clubs, that’s engaging if you want to hear about spilling blood or spilling tea.