After news broke that Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn traveled to Mexico in October to meet with fugitive Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, the La Reina del Sur actress accused the media of reporting lies. In one tweet, she promised to eventually speak her truth, as rumors about the nature of her relationship to El Chapo continued to pile on.
Though, she hasn’t granted anyone an interview since the El Chapo saga unfolded, her lawyer has shed some light on where Kate stands. Attorney Harland Braun said that Kate was blindsided by Penn’s Rolling Stone article, where he wrote at length about Kate’s involvement in a movie based on El Chapo’s life.
“She didn’t know Penn was going to write for Rolling Stone,” he said, according to the Miami Herald. “Would you meet with El Chapo and approve to have the interview for publication? After the interview, she had no choice about it. Once Penn and Guzmán agreed on the article, what was she going to do? She signed off after they had done so.”
Braun added that Kate felt “betrayed” and that Penn and two others who worked with him “basically used her and didn’t tell her.”
Braun spoke out following reports that there was a summons for Kate, who is being investigated for possibly using laundered money to fund her tequila company, Honor Tequila. She hasn’t been accused of committing a crime. Braun said that Kate has nothing to hide and will speak if the Mexican government formally requests her cooperation in their investigation, but she would prefer that they come to speak to her in the United States.
“We’re not afraid of anything ’cause she didn’t do anything to hurt anyone,” he said. “She didn’t do this to expose Mr. Guzman… The Mexican government knows that there’s no money laundering. You can find out very quickly by looking at financial records.”
As for the romance rumors, Braun said that the two are just friends. He added that El Chapo was “obviously a fan of hers,” but that if Kate seemed flirty in their text message exchange, it was was because she was “trying to encourage him” to move forward with his biopic. So basically, Kate’s lawyer just admitted that Kate friendzoned El Chapo.