“This was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do, leaving the love of my life right when the world was coming down on him.” Escobar eventually told Maria Victoria Henao that he wanted her and the children to move to a safehouse under government protection.

Meanwhile, Henao lived in fear of being killed by one of her husband’s enemies.īy 1993, it soon became clear that Escobar’s days were numbered. Near the end, when Henao and her children wanted to visit Escobar, they were blindfolded and brought to safehouses by cartel members. As his wealth and power grew, his cartel assassinated Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara in 1984, killed a presidential candidate, and blew up a commercial airline.īy that point, Henao could no longer ignore her husband’s violent line of “work” - especially as life for the family became more regimented. “I remember I used to cry all night, waiting for dawn to come.”īut of course, Escobar’s crimes stretched far beyond infidelity. “The gossip about his affairs was constant and, I must admit, deeply painful for me,” she said. He also had a daughter named Manuela Escobar.

Pinterest Pablo Escobar and his son, Juan Pablo. At one point during his marriage to Henao, he even built his own “bachelor pad” at their house so he could meet his mistresses right under his wife’s nose. And she was especially tortured by his affairs.Īs their family grew - Henao eventually gave birth to two children - Escobar slept with countless other women. In public, Pablo Escobar’s wife luxuriated in the high life, enjoying private jets, fashion shows, and world-famous artwork.īut in private, she was pained by her husband’s involvement in a brutal world of crime. Initially, Maria Victoria Henao tried to look the other way and simply enjoy her husband’s newfound wealth. But of course, she soon realized that he was away for long periods of time on “business” and that he was quickly raking in a suspiciously large sum of money. “I grew up being molded by Pablo to be his wife and the mother of his children, not to ask questions or challenge his choices, to look the other way,” she later wrote.įor the first few years of their marriage, Henao claims that her husband didn’t tell her what he did for a living. Meanwhile, Henao stood silently by his side. About a decade later, he was responsible for 80 percent of all cocaine sent to the United States as the kingpin of the Medellín Cartel. He was in the early stages of building his drug empire. Wikimedia Commons For the first few years of their marriage, Maria Victoria Henao claimed that her husband didn’t tell her what he did for a living.īy the time Maria Victoria Henao married Pablo Escobar, her husband had moved on from the petty crimes of his youth. What It Was Really Like Being Married To The “King Of Cocaine” “I wanted time to stand still, for the intimacy we were enjoying to last forever.” “It was a night of unforgettable love that remains tattooed on my skin as one of the happiest moments of my life,” she said of their wedding night. “I would just pray to God that it would be over soon.”ĭespite the trauma of the forced abortion, Maria Victoia Henao agreed to marry Pablo Escobar just a year later in 1976. “I was in intense pain, but I couldn’t say anything to anyone,” Henao recounted.

There, a woman lied about the procedure and said that it was something that would help prevent future pregnancies. But Escobar completely understood - and quickly took his future wife to a back-alley abortion clinic. She was too young and inexperienced to realize what was happening to her.

“I did not have the proper tools to understand what that intimate and intense contact meant.” And when their relationship turned sexual, Henao became pregnant at 14 years old. Henao later recounted that her much older boyfriend left her “paralyzed with fear” when he kissed her. “He made me feel like a fairy princess and I was convinced he was my Prince Charming,” she wrote.īut their early courtship was far from a fairytale. He gave her gifts, like a yellow bicycle, and serenaded her with romantic ballads. “He was the first and only love of my life.”Īccording to Henao, her future husband worked hard to seduce her. “I met Pablo when I was just 12 years old and he was 23,” she wrote in her memoir, Mrs. They distrusted Escobar, the son of a watchman, who zoomed around their neighborhood on his Vespa.īut Henao was convinced she had fallen in love. Her parents disapproved of the couple’s relationship from the beginning. He was over a decade her senior.īorn in Palmira, Colombia in 1961, Maria Victoria Henao met her future husband Pablo Escobar at a very young age. YouTube Maria Victoria Henao married Pablo Escobar when she was just 15 years old.

Pablo escobar mugshot