I’m sure many of you are reading the headline thinking “Like what happened, if the third season of ‘La reina del sur’ has just been released.” And you are absolutely right. But the story of Kate del Castillo is worth telling, because few people dedicated to the audiovisual can say that they have had an almost friendly relationship with a drug trafficker like “Chapo” Guzmán, who (with Pablo Escobar’s permission) is the best known in history. This story will take us to soap operas, interviews, trials, tequila and Sean Penn: almost nothing.
An actress like a castle
Kate del Castillo Negrete was born on October 23, 1972 (just so you can figure it out: exactly 50 years ago) in Mexico City, and Since she was little, she was already involved in show business for family matters. Not in vain her father is Eric del Castillo, who has starred in more than three hundred films and soap operas (‘Tres veces Ana’, ‘Abismo de pasión’, ‘Amigas y rivales’): both sisters, Kate and Verónica, ended up dedicating themselves to the show business, one as an actress and one as a presenter. Nepo babies a la mexicana, wow.
At the age of 6, Kate made her debut in a film starring her father, ‘Those Below’a work on the Mexican revolution, but it was not until the 90s that he began to link films of greater or lesser quality (‘Violencia en altamar’, ‘Amor que mata’) with soap operas that marked an era, such as ‘Muchachitas’ or ‘ Someday we will have wings’. His fame was so increasing over the years that in 2007 he made the leap to Hollywood as a secondary in ‘Ciudad del silencio’, along with Jennifer López and Antonio Banderas. She would not go down in history.
In fact, her real shot at becoming internationally known came in 2009, with five terrific episodes of ‘Weeds’ that they did not keep her from continuing to combine soap operas (‘Vidas cruzadas’), movies (‘Colosio’) and episodic roles (‘Grimm’, ‘CSI: Miami’). And, around this time, Telemundo offers him to star in the second most expensive series produced by the network, a first season of 63 episodes based on a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte that few imagined would still be alive a decade later: ‘The Queen of the South’. And then the plot thickens.
Very good, boy
On December 1, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto rises to power as president of Mexico, and Kate del Castillo harshly criticized it: the return to power of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), a center-right party that ruled the country from 1929 to 2000, was a hard blow to the political ideas of the actress. As part of these criticisms of the government, she posted an open letter on Twitter in which she claimed to trust El Chapo Guzmán more than the government, asking him “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you started trafficking in love?”. The narco never trafficked in love, but he did start a strange friendship with del Castillo.
Back then, in the midst of the state’s war against his cartel, El Chapo insisted on sending her flowers (although, it is said, they never reached their destination). The two remained friends until a couple of years later: in 2014, the drug trafficker was caught in Sinaloa and the different film studios, with long teeth, wanted to make a movie about his life. And the most interested party was… Chapo himself. And who did you know in the film world that you could trust? Indeed: Kate del Castillo.
The actress could have declined to produce or appear in the film, but instead, smelling the potential bombshell, she was wildly interested. So much so that she began to set up clandestine meetings to try to get international actors who could agree with her ideas. And who better than Sean Penn? The ‘Death penalty’ actor was interested, yes, but not so much in the biopic as in doing a face-to-face interview. And Kate del Castillo was his intermediary … although his version differs from that of the actor: according to him, they met in a cafeteria where she told him of her intentions to interview him. According to her, she found out about their intentions when they had already landed.: She was convinced that they were only going to talk about the possible biopic. Be careful with this, because it is important for the end of the story.
On July 11, 2015, El Chapo had escaped from prison… and On September 25, Sean Penn would begin a trip that would culminate a week later, with a meeting in person, through Del Castillo. Imagine the movie: the Hollywood actor flying in a small plane and evading air controls, the mexican actress followed by the police after receiving an anonymous tip that said that “they will only need to follow her or tap their phones” to verify that the meeting would take place that same day. Then what?
a movie ending
Sean Penn’s interview for Rolling Stone was a milestone in journalism of the last decade, in which inevitably talks about Kate del Castillo, a key piece in this story (“We would join Kate, who was our passport to gain the trust of El Chapo”; “He opens Kate’s door and greets her as if she were a daughter returning from university”…). If you are curious, I highly recommend reading this little masterpiece of the fourth estate.
What happened to Kate del Castillo after meeting with a fugitive from justice? Penn was doing journalistic work, so the law would treat him differently, but the actress was falling, a priori, in a multitude of crimes. And not only that: the humiliation towards the PRI government was unmatched, being able to find the fugitive most wanted by Mexican justice behind the authorities’ backs. It is known that El Chapo gave him the rights to make the film about his life (and this was reflected in the chats she kept on her mobile), and it is the reason she has insisted time and time again to excuse her affair. “Pure gold for my career”, as she would later define it.
And hence the discrepancies with Sean Penn, who culminated in a festival of bickering from which nothing was made clear, but on which the freedom of Kate del Castillo could have depended… Or the pursuit of the actor by the Sinaloa cartel. In the end, he did not shoot a film about his life, but he did record a documentary for Netflix (‘When I met the Chapo’) that Penn believed put him directly in danger. It was not trivial: the documentary pointed directly to him as one of the reasons why the drug trafficker was caught For justice.
Finally, nothing could be found to prove that there was some kind of connection between the actress and the drug trafficker that would lead to illegal financing of any kind: neither did El Chapo invest in Kate’s tequila, nor did she receive money for the rights to her life. Beyond some messages that pointed to a deep friendship (“I will take care of you more than my eyes”), the case was not even seen by a judge. El Chapo was caught shortly after the famous interview (and is still in jail), Sean Penn continues with his life and Kate del Castillo has become one of the most famous actresses in Latin America thanks to ‘La reina del sur’, which after its success in 2011 returned eight years later with a second season, followed by the one that Netflix released a few months ago.
His friendship with El Chapo did not harm his career: He has appeared in movies like ‘Bad Boys for life’ and series like ‘Jane the Virgin’, but his greatest success has a Spanish label. Of course, if you are fans, enjoy the third season, because according to Kate herself it does not seem that there will be a fourth: “I don’t know, I think you have to know how to tell him that now, bye, bye”. We are not going to say no to someone with the life she has had.