Did Pablo Escobar Know Griselda Blanco? Their Interesting Connection
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The cryptic quote in the show’s beginning begs the question if Griselda Blanco knew Pablo Escobar. The two Colombian drug moguls have hinted at knowing each other but with the new Netflix show, viewers may be confused why The Godfather of Cocaine didn’t appear in the series.
From the same people who produced and created as Narcos, Griselda creator and executive producer Eric Newman explained why this portrayal of Blanco is a necessary deviation from others. “We realized that all the stories we had heard about Griselda were written or told by men in the same business as Griselda, or who were trying to catch her,” he said in a press statement. “We started to recognize a pattern in all the stories about this demon that she had been made out to be. I’d spent a lot of time telling the story of complicated narcotics traffickers who killed people and blew up airplanes, murdered their rivals and allies alike, and there wasn’t the same level of vitriol toward them. There wasn’t the same level of “Oh, that’s a bad woman.” It became an entry point to the story: here’s a woman who actually was beloved by people who worked for her, who inspired a tremendous amount of loyalty.”
He also recalled the moment that the project landed. “This was one of those rare cases in my career of a great incoming phone call. I’d been living in this drug world space — professionally, not recreationally — for a number of years, working on the NARCOS franchise, which I brought to Netflix about ten years ago. And during production on Season 3, I got a call from Luis Balaguer, who is my fellow executive producer and manager of Sofía Vergara. He said, ‘Sofía Vergara very much would like to play Griselda Blanco, and she’d like to talk to you about it.’ I knew Griselda’s story, of course, and it’s one of the most interesting stories in the narcotics trade. She’s the legendary character, the cocaine queen of Miami. Sofía was drawn to her because she was Colombian, a mother, and a self-made woman who had to work a lot harder than the guys did, coming out of such a male-dominated culture and into such a male-dominated field. I think those aspects of the character resonated with her.”
So did Griselda Blanco and Pablo Escobar cross paths?
Did Griselda Blanco and Pablo Escobar know each other?
Griselda Blanco and Pablo Escobar knew of each other, but it’s not known what the extent of their relationship was. Escobar’s quote at the beginning of the series suggests that they knew of each other’s power: “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.”
It’s rumored that they were rivals and lovers due to a page in Blanco’s journal. However, none of it has been proven. What makes an interesting connection with each other is that they are both buried in the same cemetery in Colombia at Monte Sacro Cemetery.
Griselda Blanco never made an appearance in Narcos, despite her notorious reputation. “She is a true anomaly in that there has never been a woman who achieved that level of prominence in any drug cartel. Ever,” Newman explained to Digital Spy. “And obviously, that immediately piqued our interest. But we found with Narcos, the way we tell that story, what that show is about, to try to fit the Griselda story into Narcos just seems like it wouldn’t do it justice.”
Sofia Vergara talked about the importance of the role to NBC News. “I want the audience to take away how easy it is for power to corrupt people — beyond sex, politics, gender norms. The reality is that this story is about someone that was so blinded by power that it overcame any other motives that ever existed. She stood up to a lot of scary and powerful men. But none of that matters, because she ended up becoming one of them.”
Griselda is now streaming on Netflix.
The Godmother: The True Story of the Hunt for the Most Bloodthirsty Female Criminal in Our Time by Richard Smitten
The Godmother
A profile of bloodthirsty Colombian drug dealer Griselda Blanco, known as the “Black Widow” due to her penchant for killing off her lovers, recounts Blanco’s vicious crime spree and the ten-year struggle to bring her to justice.
Court records and interviews with Drug Enforcement Administration agents, federal attorneys, Miami police and Blanco’s acquaintances flesh out a portrait of a ruthless cocaine wholesaler whose “mules” (couriers) transported drugs in women’s undergarments and shoe heels. Her propensity for violence was legendary: she bragged of murdering her husband and claimed responsibility for Miami’s “Dadeland Massacre,” a shootout in a mall parking lot that disposed of one of Blanco’s creditors.
