The wife of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Emma Coronel Aispuro, spoke up for the first time in two years in an exclusive interview with Telemundo.
The former beauty queen and mother of Guzman’s twin girls has not been allowed to speak to or even hug her husband since he was extradited on January 8, 2017, after Guzman was recaptured after escaping a high-security prison in Mexico. However, in this intimate news special titled “The Woman behind El Chapo,” Coronel, 29, opens up about what life has been like since then and what she faces now, as she sits in the courtroom day after day, feet away from her husband.
"I think it’s what any wife would do in my place, be with her husband in difficult times," Coronel said with a hopeful look to the future. "In one way or another so that he feels, and sees me present, and feels my support."
Born in Los Angeles, the dual citizen married the suspected leader of the most powerful cartel in Mexico as a teenager but assures the two reporters she sat down with that she never noticed any suspicious activity within the walls of their own home.
“(The media) made him too famous,” Coronel said of her husband referring to the commotion that surrounds his name. “They (the media) doesn’t want to bring him down from the pedestal.” And he likes it, according to the young mother.
"You have to be honest, I think he did like it, he does like it a little," said Colonel with a soft smile referring to that public prominence. At the same time, she stressed the necessity of that coverage so that "media pressure is present and everything can be clearer and everyone can see what really happens" in that courtroom.
Guzman’s fate won’t be determined for at least another three months. Until then Coronel and their seven-year-old daughters pray for him. Although they have no way of knowing what the future holds, Coronel doesn’t like to think about the possibility of an unhappy ending, one separating the father of her kids from their family.
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"I prefer to keep my mind concentrated on that everything will be fine for him and for us," Coronel said.
The special will air tonight at 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT and 7 p.m. PDT) on Telemundo. Click here to watch live in Spanish. An updated video with subtitles will be posted here after the story has aired.
