Almost a week ago, Sean Penn dropped a stunning Rolling Stone piece about meeting El Chapo, the most powerful drug lord in Mexico. The piece was disguised first as an interview and then as a profile, but it was really a fart-sniffing diary entry. The small interview happened after the fact. Penn and actress Kate del Castillo had already fled the Sinaloa mountains, and El Chapo delivered punctual answers to the camera. The video began with a caption saying it belonged to del Castillo. El Chapo made the video for her, but because Penn provided a photo of the men shaking hands, folks believed the two carried mutual levels of respect.
Then the story changed. Although Penn noted feeling like a “curiosity” to the drug lord — sort of like celebrity made Penn an exotic, prized animal — El Chapo didn’t know who the hell Penn was. El Chapo agreed to the meeting because he had the warmies for del Castillo, and he got himself captured because of a crush. Now Team El Chapo is angry as hell at Penn for including this excerpt in the profile:
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Penn described the statement as a boastful one, but now El Chapo’s attorney, Juan Pablo Badillo, says his client is not a preening peacock. Badillo says Penn should testify under oath, which will prove his lies about El Chapo’s money-laundering ways and the drug-lord stuff, too:
“Its a lie, absurd speculation from Mr Penn. In a way, yes, it does complicate [his defense]. Mr Penn should be called to testify to respond about the stupidities he has said. [El Chapo] could not have made these claims. Mr Guzman is a very serious man, very intelligent … Where’s the proof? Where’s the audio?”
Badillo also says there’s no truth to the story that El Chapo is being moved to different prison cells (to avoid another tunneling incident). Sigh. Taking sides seems absurd. El Chapo is the subject of many urban legends, but he’s also a ruthless drug lord and an escape artist whose love of tunnels did two things: (1) Helped him deliver drugs to the United States; and (2) Flee prison and become a fugitive. Rolling Stone also came under fire for allowing El Chapo to approve the interview, for which he (allegedly) had no corrections.
Did Sean Penn bend the truth during his profile? If anything, Penn romanticized El Chapo.
New wrinkles are here. Penn, who previously claimed he has “nothing to hide,” sat with Charlie Rose for an interview that will air on Sunday. Penn wants to clear the air. He says his interview had nothing to do with El Chapo’s recapture. Penn expresses a “terrible regret” for how “my article failed”:
“This is somebody who — upon whose interview could I begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs. That was my simple idea … I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs … Let’s go to the big picture of what we all want. We all want this drug problem to stop. We all want them — the killings in Chicago to stop. We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there. And if you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs … And how much time have they spent in the last week since this article come [sic] out, talking about that? One percent? I think that’d be generous.”
Wait a moment. All of Penn’s talk about taking a leak, farting near El Chapo, flying with an owl named Espinoza, and watching El Chapo turn into Superman… was really a dialogue on drug policy? Huh.
The full 60 Minutes interview will air on Sunday.
(Via Rolling Stone, CBS News and Reuters)