Kate Del Castillo Joins ‘Red Table Talk: The Estefans’ To Talk El Chapo, Sean Penn & More

A new episode of “Red Table Talk: The Estefans” has just debuted, featuring special guest Kate del Castillo.

The famed Mexican actress, who portrays a drug kingpin in long-running Spanish-language telenovela “La Reina del Sur”, sits down at the red table with Gloria Estefan, daughter Emily and niece Lily for an unfiltered conversation about how she came to visit fugitive cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán (a.k.a. El Chapo) alongside Sean Penn.

It all started, she explained, with a “manifesto” she shared on Twitter in 2012. Complaining about government corruption in Mexico, she briefly mentioned El Chapo, declaring she “believed” in him more than she did “the government that hides truths from me.”

As it turned out, El Chapo was a fan, and got in touch with her through his lawyers, offering her the rights to tell his life story on screen.

After connecting with a pair of A-list Hollywood producers, Sean Penn caught wind of the project and expressed interest. Meanwhile, she feared the movie was in jeopardy, given that during this period El Chapo had escaped from prison (he was subsequently captured).

When she and Penn met to discuss the project, he suggested they try to set up a meeting with the fugitive cartel kingpin in person.

This led to del Castillo, Penn and the producers flying to meet El Chapo in hiding. “El Chapo opened the door for me,” she said, revealing he beamed at her with a huge smile on his face throughout the entire conversation.

In the midst of the meeting, Penn went rogue and blindsided her by asking El Chapo if he could interview him for Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘Wait, this is off the script,'” del Castillo says.

The meeting took another unexpected turn when El Chapo showed her to her room — which was when she found out he was insisting they all stay the night.

“I thought I was gonna be raped, definitely killed or something. He could have done whatever the hell he wanted, what can I do?” she explained.

About an hour after she, Penn and the producers went to bed, they were awakened and told they were all leaving, believing El Chapo’s hideout was about to be raided.

“Almost 24 hours after we left, the military came in and started shooting,” she said.

While she and Penn had a brief affair during this period, she now calls him an “a**hole,” insisting he fabricated elements of his Rolling Stone feature.

According to del Castillo, his claim of “a checkpoint” was something he “just put in there to spark up his stupid story. There was no checkpoint. I hated him for that. That’s why his article was full of s**t.”

Find out more about what del Castillo has to say about Penn in the new episode of “Red Table Talk: The Estefans”, above.