Actor Sean Penn and his lawyers are going toe-to-toe with Netflix over a documentary series that Penn says could end in bloodshed if the streaming service doesn’t comply with his demands to make changes in the story, according to the New York Times.
“The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate del Castillo Story” focuses on the October 2015 meeting between del Castillo, one of the most famous actresses in Mexico, Penn and the notorious drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo.
Penn reportedly believes the documentary could endanger his life because as of now, it implies that he assisted the Department of Justice in their efforts to finally catch El Chapo.
“It is reprehensible that, in their ongoing, relentless efforts to gain additional attention and publicity, Ms. del Castillo and her team (who have zero firsthand knowledge) have sought to create this profoundly false, foolish, and reckless narrative,” Penn’s spokesman Mark Fabiani told the Times. “The notion that Mr. Penn or anyone on his behalf alerted D.O.J. to the trip is a complete fabrication and baldfaced lie. It never happened, nor would there have been any reason for it to have happened.”
David Broome, the producer of the series, reportedly said: “We never say in this documentary that Sean Penn is in cahoots with the D.O.J.”
This story is a bizarre one, the Times notes; authorities were befuddled as to how two actors could not only find a notorious drug lord but end up at a table with him. Penn later wrote a first person essay for Rolling Stone about the encounter; this new film reportedly shows del Castillo’s side of the story. Take a look.
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