Kate del Castillo Sets the Record Straight About El Chapo on ‘Red Table Talk: The Estefans’

Photos: JC Olivera/Alfredo Estrella/Getty Images

In a bombshell episode of “Red Table Talk: The Estefans”, superstar Mexican actress Kate del Castillo went on the record about the event that changed the course of her life: her meeting with the notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

In an episode entitled “Surviving Betrayal: Kate del Castillo’s Comeback”, the telenovela star attempts to clear her name.

As background, del Castillo attracted global attention when the media discovered that she had been talking to and visiting with El Chapo after his 2015 escape from prison. According to del Castillo, their entire relationship (which she insists was strictly platonic) was sparked by a message she Tweeted out in which she said: “Today I believe more in El Chapo Guzman than in the governments that hide truths from me.” Emboldened by this state, El Chapo took it upon himself to contact the telenovela actress, whom he had long admired, for a meeting. 

Del Castillo insisted that the meeting was purely business-related. 

Del Castillo told El Chapo she wanted to make a movie about his life, and he agreed. Soon enough, Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn expressed his interest in the movie. And before they knew it, Penn, his producers, and del Castillo all hopped on a private jet to meet El Chapo.

It was at this meeting that Penn conducted his infamous “Rolling Stone” interview with El Chapo–an interview that del Castillo helped translate. Del Castillo told the Estefans that El Chapo was staring at her with a massive smile on his face the whole time she was there–he only had eyes for her. 

At the end of the night, El Chapo showed her to the room she would be staying in. “We didn’t even know that we were going to stay there!” del Castillo told the Estefans. “I thought I was going to be raped and definitely killed or something like that. He could’ve done whatever the hell he wanted to.” But El Chapo left her alone and the visit ended shortly after that. 

Del Castillo claims that her and Penn got out of there in the nick of time. “Literally 24-hours after we left, the military came in and started shooting,” she said. 

Although del Castillo left the meeting with her life intact, her future was forever changed.

Del Castillo was charged by the Mexican government with obstruction of justice and money laundering. Sean Penn, however, struck a deal with “Rolling Stone” to be covered under journalism laws–he and his producing partners got off scott-free.

More than anything, del Castillo felt betrayed and foolish that she was used as a pawn by Sean Penn. “When all of us committed the same crime, why was I the only one with charges?” del Castillo asked the Estefans. Not only was del Castillo embroiled in legal controversy, but a media circus cropped up around her as well.

Rumors of a romance between her and El Chapo abounded–rumors that she vehemently denies. 

Del Castillo choked up as she explains the torture that her parents went through in those days. “[The press] were saying that I was ‘la puta del Chapo’. That I had business with him, that I was laundering money.” But del Castillo says her parents always stood by her and never believed the rumors.

Because of the ordeal, Kate del Castillo was forced to flee Mexico, leaving her family, friends, and career behind. She has now taken up residence in Los Angeles. But del Castillo feels anything but safe. “I got a gun, and I sleep with my gun next to me,” she revealed. She believes that the Mesican government is embarassed that she was able to locate El Chapo before they were. “Everybody here knows that if something happens to me or my family, it’s not el cartel. It’s going to be the Mexican government,” she said. 

To this day, there is no evidence that El Chapo ever paid del Castillo any money. But still, del Castillo has not returned to Mexico. Check out the “Red Table Talk: the Estefans” episode, “Surviving Betrayal: Kate del Castillo’s Comeback” here.