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Sofia Vergara is starring as the late, real-life former drug lord Griselda Blanco in the upcoming Netflix series Griselda. Blanco, who was also known as the “Cocaine Godmother,” immigrated to Miami, Florida from Colombia in 1964. She began a successful cocaine operation that led her to reign over the Miami drug trade. (Note to anyone who has read The Thursday Murder Club series: I know they are nothing alike, but now whenever I read about a cocaine Queenpin, I can only picture Connie in my mind, lol.)
The first of six episodes of Griselda was set to drop on Thursday, January 25. Vergara, who is also a producer, has been heavily promoting the series. However, this premiere date is now in jeopardy because Netflix and Vergara are being sued by Blanco’s family for using their image and likeness without permission. Her last surviving son, named – I kid you not – Michael Corleone Blanco alleges that he’d been sharing stories with parties interested in giving his mom’s story the Hollywood treatment up until 2022. According to Mikey C, Netflix told him that they wouldn’t use any of these stories. They did anyway. Oops!
In the lawsuit, Blanco’s son reportedly said that he’d been shopping around his and his mother’s life stories since 2009 in the hopes of developing them into a production. Netflix expressed interest during that time, he said. The son, who has previously shared tales about his mother in multiple public interviews, alleged that the streamer said it wouldn’t utilize any of his anecdotes. But the upcoming series heavily relies on them anyway, he claimed, adding that he did not receive any compensation.
According to the lawsuit, the Blanco children are seeking a court injunction to prevent the show’s release. Representatives for Netflix and Vergara did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Vergara recently sat down with ET to discuss her portrayal of Blanco, describing her as “a complex person.”
“There are so many nuances to explore in terms of who she was as a drug lord and, of course, as a woman, as a mother,” said Vergara, who herself is Colombian. “She was someone who did whatever it took to protect her family. I really wanted to explore that from the point of view of, you know, of her being one of the only women in history to have gone as far as she did.”
Blanco was reportedly one of the first Colombian women to traffic cocaine into the U.S. She spent years behind bars for drug trafficking and three murders. But some suspected that she was linked to dozens more killings, if not hundreds.
Blanco was also a focus of 2006’s cult-classic documentary “Cocaine Cowboys.” She was shot dead in 2012.
I’m always kinda struck by these types of lawsuits. Well, not the lawsuits themselves, but by the fact that production companies will use images or personal stories about their subject without the necessary permission. On one hand, wouldn’t it be easy enough to write a check and get permission? But on the other hand, is there any kind of legal document that Michael Blanco should have signed ahead of time to make sure Netflix didn’t do him dirty? I think US copyright laws probably would indicate that Michael gave permission by consenting to the interview because nothing he said was copyrighted, but I’d love to hear more about this area of law from any experts out there. I do know that companies will steal ideas from people they interview from jobs and, other than not just answering those types of interview questions, there’s not much you can do about it. Either way, I have a feeling that Michael and Netflix will probably work something out that (hopefully) fairly compensates him. Griselda sounds like she was a fascinating and powerful woman who is about to gain a whole new generation of notoriety.
Photos credit: Netflix Press
