Griselda Blanco was also known as the ‘Black Widow’ (Picture: Metro Dade Police Department)
‘The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.’
These are the words reportedly once said by Pablo Escobar, the infamous Colombian drug lord, famously depicted in the Netflix series Narcos.
And now the streaming channel have set their sights on Griselda, bringing us the story of this deadly Colombian woman who managed to put the fear of god into the ‘king of cocaine’.
Produced by and starring Modern Family’s Sofía Vergara as Griselda in the new Netflix drama of the same name, it isn’t the first time the notorious ‘Cocaine Godmother’s’ wild story has been told. She’s previously been the subject of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys, and portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones in a 2018 TV biopic.
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However, with Sofía’s impressive transformation being a big talking point in this latest version, a whole new audience is set to find out the true story behind the ‘Black Widow’ who forged a drugs empire built on fear… and took out anyone who stood in her way.
Born in Cartagena, Colombia in 1943, Griselda moved to Medellín with her mother when she was three years old after she was abandoned by her father.
Their move to the second-biggest city in the country exposed her to a criminal lifestyle, giving her a taste for breaking the law at a young age as a pickpocketing thief.
Running away from home at 19, having reportedly suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, Griselda immigrated illegally to the US, setting up base in New York where she was said to have started selling marijuana.
But it was when she eventually made her way to Miami in the late 1970s that she saw her vast cocaine empire flourish against the backdrop of the city’s deadly drug war, an era that subsequently resulted in hundreds of deaths.
Sofia spent hours in the makeup chair to transform into her depiction of Griselda (Picture: Elizabeth Morris/Netflix)
Griselda was married multiple times in her life – first to Carlos Trujillo, a document forger, with whom she had three children: Dixon, Uber and Osvaldo.
After their divorce, Griselda was suspected to have ordered for Carlos to be killed.
Next, she married Alberto Bravo, a drug trafficker who is believed to have introduced her to the cocaine industry.
The couple ended up attacking each other in a shoot-out, after Griselda was said to have suspected her husband of stealing from her.
While Alberto and six bodyguards were shot dead, the ‘Cocaine Godmother’ sustained a bullet to the stomach, yet managed to survive.
The ‘Cocaine Godmother’ was suspected of being behind the deaths of her own husbands (Picture: Orange County Sheriff)
Griselda shared her youngest (and only surviving) son Michael with her third husband Darío Sepúlveda, who she allegedly ordered to be assassinated after he kidnapped Michael during a custody dispute.
During her reign as a cocaine kingpin, it’s thought that Griselda was behind more than 200 murders. Her downfall only came after police caught one of her hitmen, who then cut a deal to tell them all about their boss so he could avoid death row.
Although, Griselda herself should have been sentenced to execution for all her bloody crimes, she ended up only being charged with three counts of second degree murder in 1998, after her snitch was caught having phone sex with three secretaries who worked in the state attorney’s office.
Such dubious behaviour prompted Griselda’s lawyer to deem an unreliable witness and instead she pleaded guilty to the three charges and was ordered to spend 20 years in prison.
Michael Corleone Blanco was Griselda’s only surviving child (Picture: VH1)
It was 2004 when her incarceration ended and Griselda was permitted to leave prison on compassionate release, having suffered from various health issues, including a cardiac arrest while she was behind bars.
Eight years later, that tables were finally turned on Griselda.
Leaving her local butchers with her pregnant daughter-in-law and $150 worth of meat, she was gunned down by an unknown shooter on a motorbike.
It was a hit that echoed her own drive-by style at the peak of her power.
While Griselda’s life story on Netflix has already received rave reviews, not everyone is a fan.
The late drug lord’s only surviving son Michael Corleone Blanco – who was named after Al Pacino’s character in The Godfather – has slammed it for being ‘disrespectful’.
‘Sofía’s camp and the Netflix creators were disrespectful and ultimately produced the Griselda project on their own for commercial gain, without key details from the Blanco family,’ he claimed.
He told Fox News: ‘After the sit-down at the table, my lawyers formally sent a cease-and-desist letter to Netflix and Sofía’s camp. As of today, Netflix nor Sofía’s camp has made any attempt to reconcile.’
According to ET, Michael has filed a lawsuit that claims he had been conducting interviews for the past 15 years with the intention of adapting his and his mother’s life stories into a series or a book.
He alleged that Netflix expressed interest in the project, and ‘heavily relied’ on his anecdotes without compensation.
The lawsuit reportedly claims that the series violated the rights of Griselda’s children by using their images and likenesses without permission.
The publication stated that a representative for Netflix did not have a comment to provide regarding the lawsuit, while Sofía’s team had also been contacted.
The Modern Family star seen attending the premiere of Griselda in Madrid earlier this month (Picture: Juan Naharro Gimenez/Getty Images for Netflix)
Speaking to ET, the show’s creator Eric Newman said: ‘It’s not my first rodeo,’ pointing out that the family of Pablo Escobar made ‘some more claims’ when he produced Narcos.
Addressing the production of Griselda, he said: ‘We had a very specific story we wanted to tell. I believe we told it, and I don’t think it in any way prevents someone else from telling their own version of it.’
Sofía added that she wanted to bring across that the titular character was ‘not just a monster’.
‘I tried to tell also that she was human, that she had her own way – the way she knew how to be a good mother, a good friend, she tried.’
Griselda is available to watch on Netflix.
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Griselda Blanco was also known as the ‘Black Widow’.