Maria Victoria Henao didn’t know that Pablo Escobar would one day lead the Medellín Cartel when she fell in love with him.

Maria Victoria Henao says she met the “love of her life” when she was 12 years old. Not the first adjective most people would choose to describe notorious cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, she described the 23-year-old as “loving”, “kind” and “a gentleman”.

Nevertheless, in 1976, a few years later, the younger Henao married the much older Escobar. Despite the shocking age difference and her family’s displeasure, she insisted on being with her “Prince Charming.”

Henao once remarked: “He was a fantastic lover. “I was impressed by his desire to help others and his empathy for their plight. We traveled to places where he planned to establish schools for poor people.

Henao ultimately stayed with Escobar until his gruesome death in 1993. However, her story was convoluted, not least because she was not necessarily interested in joining him in his criminal activities. Towards the end, Henao had developed a deep hatred for just about everything in her husband’s world, especially his numerous affairs with several women.

Maria Victoria Henao continues to insist that she had a real romantic relationship with Pablo Escobar. But during their 17 years of marriage, he also caused her and the entire Colombian nation great suffering.

How Maria Henao married Pablo Escobar

Maria Victoria Henao, born in Palmira, Colombia in 1961, met Pablo Escobar when she was a child. Her parents were opposed to this romance from the start. They were wary of Escobar, their neighborhood’s Vespa driver and son of a guard.

However, Henao was sure that she had fallen in love. In her autobiography, “Mrs. Escobar: My Life with Pablo,” she explains: “I met Pablo when I was just 12 and he was 23. He was my only love in the world.

Henao claimed that her future spouse had gone to great lengths to attract her. Along with gifts like a yellow bicycle, he sang her love songs and serenaded her.

She added: “I was sure he was my prince charming and made me feel like a fairytale princess.”

However, their first courtship was anything but a fairy tale. Henao later recalled how her much older boyfriend’s first kiss left her “paralyzed with fear”.

She then admitted: “I wasn’t ready. » I lacked the knowledge necessary to understand the meaning of this close and intense interaction. Henao, who was 14 at the time, became pregnant when their relationship became sexual.

She was neither old nor wise enough to understand what was happening to her. However, Escobar was fully aware of the situation and quickly drove his future wife to an abortion clinic on a side street. There, a woman misrepresented the operation by claiming it would help prevent future pregnancies.

Henao remembers: “I was in terrible pain, but I couldn’t say anything to anyone. » “I would just ask God to put an end to it quickly. »

Despite the ordeal of forced abortion, Maria Victoia Henao agreed to marry Pablo Escobar in 1976.

She remembers her wedding night as “a night of indescribable love that was etched on my skin as one of the happiest moments of my life. » “I wanted the intimacy we experienced to last forever and for time to stand still. She was 15 years old. Her partner was 26 years old.

What it was really like to marry the ‘Cocaine King’.

When Maria Victoria Henao married Pablo Escobar, her husband had left behind his youthful transgressions. He had just started his drug business. As head of the Medellín cartel, a decade later he was responsible for 80 percent of cocaine shipments to the United States.

Henao remained motionless beside him. She later recalled: “Pablo raised me as a child to be his wife and the mother of his children, not to question or confront his decisions, but to look the other way.”

Henao claims her husband denied her employment during the early years of their marriage. But of course, she soon discovered that he was often on business trips and making an abnormal amount of money.

Henao initially tried to ignore the situation and simply rejoice at her husband’s higher income. Outdoors, Pablo Escobar’s wife enjoyed the finer things in life, attending fashion shows, luxury jets and famous works of art.

However, she was secretly troubled by her husband’s involvement in the vicious world of crime. And her adventures particularly tormented her.

Henao eventually gave birth to two children, and as their family grew, Escobar had countless affairs with other women. When he married Henao, he even built his own “bachelor pad” in their house so he could meet his lovers right in front of his wife.

She admitted that she found the constant rumors about his extramarital affairs extremely disturbing. “I remember crying all night waiting for dawn.”

However, Escobar’s misdeeds apparently went far beyond adultery. His cartel assassinated a presidential candidate, destroyed an airliner and assassinated Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara in 1984, as its wealth and power grew.

Henao had reached a stage where she was forced to cope with her husband’s hard “work”, especially as family life became more structured. Toward the end, when Henao and her children asked to see Escobar, cartel members blindfolded them and took them to hideouts. Henao, for her part, constantly feared that one of her husband’s enemies would murder her.

By 1993, it was clear that Escobar’s time was running out. Escobar eventually revealed to Maria Victoria Henao his desire for the family to go to a shelter under government protection.

She recalls: “I cried and cried.” “Leaving the love of my life while the world was falling apart was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”

Pablo Escobar was shot and executed by Colombian police on a rooftop in Medellín in December of that year.

Maria Henao will be seen on television in 2019. She recently returned to the spotlight to share her experiences.

The drug lord’s family, including his wife, son and daughter, wept quietly and fearfully as the world cheered his death. Maria Victoria Henao and her two children packed their belongings and left while Colombian authorities raided Medellín and arrested the Escobar cartel.

The family eventually made it to Buenos Aires, Argentina, after Germany and Mozambique denied them asylum. The group then decides to adopt new names. Maria Victoria Henao was also known as Maria Isabel Santos Caballero and Victoria Henao Vallejos. (Today, Victoria Eugenia Henao is her preferred name.)

But Pablo Escobar’s widow faced additional difficulties in Argentina. Maria Victoria Henao and her son Juan Pablo were both detained for several months in 1999 after being arrested on suspicion of money laundering. Henao claimed to media after her release that she was detained because of her identity and not because of any alleged wrongdoing.

She explained: “I am a prisoner in Argentina because I am Colombian. They want to show that Argentina is fighting drug trafficking by bringing the ghost of Pablo Escobar to justice.

After his release, Henao largely avoided the spotlight for nearly two decades. However, she has spoken out about her relationship with Escobar in recent years. Her book “Mrs. Escobar: My Life with Pablo” offers insight into her famous husband and her own mysterious personality.

Henao still can’t reconcile her affection for Pablo Escobar with the terrible acts he committed. She says she is filled with “tremendous grief and guilt” because of “the immense pain my husband has caused” – not only to her family, but to the entire Colombian nation. . Henao expressed regret over her late husband’s reign of terror in a 2018 interview with Colombian radio W.

She said: “I ask for forgiveness for what I did in my youth” and clarified that she was not a member of the cartel. “My life wasn’t going well,” she said.