Kate del Castillo, the Mexican actress who helped arrange Sean Penn’s Rolling Stone interview with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, took to social media to speak up about the recent events. In both Spanish and English tweets, Castillo wrote: “Thank you for your support over the past few days. Not surprisingly, many have chosen to make up items they think will make good stories and that aren’t truthful. I look forward to sharing my story with you.”
Transcripts of text messages sent between Guzmán, his associates and del Castillo were published recently by the Mexican newspaper Milenio, reports CNN. “I will take care of you more than my own eyes,” promised Guzmán in one. “Tell Kate that when she comes we will drink tequila and dance. Tell her that,” he says in another.
Castillo, famous for her role as a drug trafficker in the telenovela La Reina del Sur, was first contacted by Guzmán’s lawyer in 2012 after she posted a tweet in which she criticized the Mexican government. “Today I believe more in El Chapo Guzman than in the governments that hide the truth from me even though it is painful,” she wrote. Castillo clarified her comments in an interview last year with CNN. “Someone like that, at least we know who he is, we know what he does, we know what his profession is,” she said. “The others sometimes are worse criminals, and have numbed us, and hide everything from us.”
Penn also commented on the interview through a brief statement to the Associated Press. When asked about images published by Mexican newspaper El Universal that appeared to show Penn and Castillo arriving at an airport before the infamous meeting occurred, Penn only replied: “I’ve got nothin’ to hide.”
Contact the author at marie.lodi@jezebel.com.
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