Joey Pants loses head over ‘Sopranos’ spread

Joey Pants isn’t happy with David Chase, and he’s speaking out about it.

The former “Sopranos” cast member, who lost his head on the show, is losing his temper in real life over the inclusion of his image in the show’s photo spread in the April issue of Vanity Fair. Joe Pantoliano is up in arms over the use of a body double and prop head that was used as a substitute for his character, Ralph Cifaretto, in the photo shoot (after he had expressed disinterest in appearing in it himself).

The photo shoot commemorates the show’s upcoming final season on HBO. In true VF fashion, the hyper-realized artistic shoot by Annie Leibovitz has garnered a ton of attention.

Upon seeing the gory photo in the magazine, and seeing the reaction it received from his three young daughters, Mr. Pantoliano fired off a letter to series creator David Chase expressing his dissatisfaction with an image he considers to be in poor taste, and the “despicable, wrong and diabolical” methods used to create the image without his input or permission.

The Pants-less photo of the show’s dearly departed characters also includes a bloody Vincent Pastore and a roughed up Drea de Matteo, who posed for the shoot despite being absent from the show since their characters’ deaths.

Click here (PDF) to read the letter, which includes comments on everything from the original on-air death scene to the height of the photo body double!

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