“I never fell for him. We had sex,” Mexican actress and former telenovela (soap opera) star Kate del Castillo told Good Morning America about her romp in the jungle with 57-year-old. and former husband of pop star Madonna, Sean Penn.
“We’re both adults, single and something was going on, but that was it. It was business,” assures the actress.
Del Castillo has long been a household name thanks to her roles in numerous telenovelas such as “Muchachitas” and “La Reina del Sur” (Queen of the South).
The story of Kate and Sean goes back to 2015 when Penn and del Castillo visited Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán at his hideout in the mountains, with Penn interviewing the fugitive for Rolling Stone magazine. An unnamed Mexican official confirmed that Penn’s meeting helped authorities locate Guzmán, that led to his capture.
Speculation previously swirled about whether Del Castillo was romantically involved with El Chapo.
However, the Mexican actress denied any such involvement. “It was so stupid,” del Castillo said about her rumored affair with the drug lord. But says she had sex with Oscar winner Penn after they secretly met with international drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman in Mexico in 2015.
“They were all thinking I had something to do with El Chapo and nobody asked me [about Penn] — and I’m not bragging about that.”
The claim comes after Penn tried to block her three-part Netflix documentary series, The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate del Castillo Story.
“It was never a relationship. It was just business. And sex,” says del Castillo.
In the series, the actress is seen telling a friend that she “fell” for Penn during their time together. The 44-year-old actress insists the documentary “is not at all about Sean or my feud with him” — it’s just about her truth. “I just want people to know why I did what I did.”
“There’s a reason why I did this,” del Castillo adds. “I’m an actress and I’m a producer and I’m a storyteller and I am always trying to look out for great stories to tell. And this is a fascinating story. I risked my life for it but I never did anything illegal.”
The project was released despite resistance from Penn and his legal team, as an attorney for the actor fired off a letter to Netflix warning that “blood will be on their hands if this film causes bodily harm,” according to The New York Times.
The New York Daily News says Penn is concerned that Del Castillo’s series implies he played a role in authorities finding El Chapo, which he and his team have refuted according to the Times report. A representative for Penn released a statement asserting that he never informed the Department of Justice about his encounter with El Chapo.
“The notion that Mr. Penn or anyone on his behalf alerted D.O.J. to the trip is a complete fabrication and bald-faced lie,” reads the statement, according to the Times. “It never happened, nor would there have been any reason for it to have happened.”
Netflix also submitted a statement claiming the documentary never suggests Penn worked with the D.O.J.
Del Castillo, meanwhile, told ABC that she didn’t play a role in El Chapo’s capture, either.
“I have nothing to do with him getting caught,” she said. “I don’t work for the government, and I am just interested in my career and trying to do a good story.”
Del Castillo claims that Penn had watched the documentary and wasn’t happy about it, but that he took too long to voice any concerns about the series. “We reached out to him many times and he ignored us. Now he wants to be a part of it and it’s too late. I think he should do his own documentary of himself,” she says.
According to a statement given to the L.A. Times by Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for Penn: “These producers are propagating false and reckless fabrications for their profit. This is nothing but a cheap, National Enquirer-esque tale spun by a person whose hunger for fame is both tawdry and transparent. Sean Penn made an attempt to correct the documentary’s shoddiness and profound inaccuracies, an attempt which the producers rejected out of hand.”
