LOS ANGELES — Victoria Gotti is apparently under the impression that she's one of those fascinating characters that people would just love to get to know through the magic of reality TV.

She's not.

Not even close.

Which makes watching "Growing Up Gotti" (7:30 p.m., A&E) downright painful.

Gotti, who is, of course, the daughter of the late Mafia chieftain John Gotti, said she was approached repeatedly by various producers and networks wanting to make her life into a reality show.

"This was the last thing I would ever consider doing. . . . And, after a while, I started to see the flip side of this," she said. "And I thought — you know what? All the newspaper columns in the world and all the television platforms out there — '20/20,' 'Dateline' — all of these pieces couldn't tell the world who we really are and how we live better than this show could."

Victoria, dear, in the future go with your first instinct. Say no. We don't care enough about you to bother. Most of America doesn't even know who you are.

And you would be better off if it stayed that way.

But this is not about her ego. Oh, no.

"I think I did it for my children, believe it or not," she said. (Not.)

With a straight face, Gotti told critics that she didn't want her children "to go out in the world and be known as the Mafia princess, blah, blah, blah."

(Yes, she really said "blah, blah, blah.")

No, she wants us to know how smart her three sons — 18, 17 and 14 — are. That one is going to Harvard, another to NYU and the third aspires to be a great chef.

Sorry, Victoria, but what viewers are going to remember about them is their big mouths, their utter disrespect for you and their violent behavior as they brawl and try to kick down doors inside your mansion.

You called it "rambunctious behavior" and just "teenagers being teenagers," but in the real world even teenagers don't act like that.

You're not alone in this, Victoria, but "Growing Up Gotti" is more evidence that putting kids on reality TV is something akin to child abuse.

"Growing Up Gotti" is obviously A&E's attempt to re-create the early success of "The Osbournes." And, viewers might recall, both of the teenage Osbournes who appeared on that show ended up in rehab.

Not that Victoria's kids apparently had the most normal of upbringings. Grandfather a mobster. Uncle (John A. "Junior" Gotti) a mobster. Mother a publicity hound.

And tonight's episode, in which Victoria goes out on a date, probably didn't help. Talk about patterning bad behavior — she stomps out in a snit when her date suggests that her sons might not be the only ones who are spoiled.