Interviews – Page 18 – The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

Mexican Actress Kate del Castillo Explains Flirtatious ‘El Chapo’ Texts With Diane Sawyer

Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and Hollywood actor Sean Penn have been embroiled in controversy since the revelation that they met with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the most wanted drug lord in the world, in person while he was on the lam last year.

Mexican authorities want to interrogate her as a witness in an investigation and have insinuated they could be potentially investigating her for allegedly taking money from Guzman for her tequila company, Honor del Castillo, according to the newspaper El Universal.

This past January, del Castillo’s private text messages with El Chapo were leaked to the media, suggesting another kind of scandal — that the two of them could be romantically involved.

But del Castillo is now sharing her side of the story and insists in an interview with ABC News’s Diane Sawyer that there was nothing romantic between her and the drug kingpin, whom she met in person last October.

del Castillo told Sawyer:

“Oh, my God, no, not at all. It’s just so not like that, and that’s one of the frustrations I have. That I wish I could have every single text that I sent with me, you know, to tell everybody how out of context they are. There was no reason why we wouldn’t be friendly.”

Del Castillo says the leaked messages were selectively chosen and released out of context.

“They have put them out of context. So it looks like I’m having an affair, almost, with a guy and that’s what makes me so angry.”

Del Castillo, 43, became a superstar after she appeared as the lead character, Teresa Mendoza, an ordinary woman who transforms into a fearless drug lord in the telenovela “La Reina del Sur” or “The Queen of the South.”

She said Guzman first reached out to her in summer 2014 through his lawyer, who she said told her that Guzman wanted to give her the rights to make a movie about his life. The drug lord had been re-arrested in February 2014.

She claims she jumped at the chance and told almost no one about the project, except for two movie producers she brought on as she began to assemble her team.

Read more of this article see a video of the 2020 interview on ABCNews.

Flirty Text Messages Between Actress And Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’ Revealed

Mexican actress Kate del Castillo caught the attention of the convicted drug lord after she sent a boozy, ill conceived tweet back in 2012.

In a tweet, she told Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán:

‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you started trafficking with the good? Come on senor, you would be the hero of heroes. Let’s traffic with love.’

Her public admiration for Guzman caught his attention and one of his attorneys reached out to her to requesting a meeting.

A mutual admiration flourished when the drug lord offered del Castillo the rights to his life story.

But things became more intimate when the star was given a blackberry by Guzman’s people so he could ‘hear from her directly’.

At this point Guzman had escaped from the maximum security Altiplano prison, something del Castillo said she was ‘celebrating over’.

In September 2015, Guzman wrote that he would love for her to spend a day with him at a near by ranch and added:

‘Amiga, if you’ll bring the wine, I’ll also drink yours. . . . I’m not a drinker, but your presence will be a lovely thing and I very much want to get to know you and become very good friends. You are the best in this world. . . . I will take care of you more than I do my own eyes.’

In an in-depth interview with the actress with New Yorker, del Castillo revealed her reply:

‘It moves me so much that you say you’ll take care of me—nobody has ever taken care of me, thank you! And I’ll be free next weekend!’

He later wrote:

‘I’m not a drinker, but with you I’ll drink to the feeling of being together. Thanks so much for being such a fine person. How beautiful you are, amiga, in every way.’

The sensational meeting took place a month later deep in the Mexican jungle.

Guzman was captured as a result of his meeting with the sexy star and Hollywood actor Sean Penn. Penn, who tagged along to interview the famed drug lord for the now defunct Rolling Stones article, now says he regrets the interview.

The Woman Who Inspired “Orange Is The New Black” Talks Prison

Piper Kerman’s number one goal is to reduce the number of people in prison.

She spent 13 months at a correctional centre in Danbury, Connecticut from February 2004. As a white, middle-class prisoner, Kerman quickly became aware of the ways the prison system fails Americans – but particularly poor Americans, and people of colour. Since her stint behind bars, she’s become a vocal advocate for prisoners rights.

She’s been on the board of the Women’s Prison Association for six years and teaches non-fiction writing in two prisons in Ohio. And in a move that brought her story to prominence, she also wrote a memoir that served as the inspiration for hugely popular Netflix show Orange Is The New Black.