Mexican Actress Opens Up About El Chapo and Sean Penn

Kate del Castillo, the Mexican actress who befriended notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and inadvertently aided in his recapture, gave her first major interview to the New Yorker. In the interview, she claims that actor Sean Penn lied about parts of their journey to visit El Chapo and also misled her on his reasons for wanting the visit, NBC News reports. She believed Penn was potentially interested in her movie project on El Chapo. She claims she didn't know he had actually been hired by Rolling Stone to write an article about the fugitive drug lord until they were in El Chapo's presence.

It eventually became apparent to del Castillo that Penn had never been interested in her movie and was only using her for his article. She calls his claims that she knew about the article from the beginning "total and complete bullshit." She says she was frustrated with the final version of the Rolling Stone article, which was not the one sent to El Chapo for approval and included at least one scene—being stopped at a military checkpoint—she says never happened. Del Castillo tells the New Yorker she "wanted to die" after learning authorities used El Chapo's contacts with "actors and producers" to find him. Read the full New Yorker piece here. Diane Sawyer and 20/20 will have the first television interview with del Castillo on March 18, according to ABC News. (More Joaquin Guzman stories.)