The 35-year-old wife of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is going to be a model at Milan Fashion Week in Italy on Sunday — one year after her own release from prison in Los Angeles.
Emma Coronel Aispuro is set to sashay down the catwalk as the main model for international designer April Black Diamond. The show will take place at the elegant Palazzo Serbelloni, where Napoleon Bonaparte resided for a few months in 1796.
The California-born Coronel was a beauty queen when she met Guzmán, 32 years her senior. They married in 2007, when she was 18, and they have twin daughters who were born in Los Angeles in 2011.
After the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was sentenced in New York to life in prison plus 30 years on July 17, 2019, Coronel herself was convicted in the U.S. and sentenced to three years in prison.
The dual U.S.-Mexico citizen pleaded guilty to three counts of helping her husband’s cartel: conspiracy to launder money and distribute illegal drugs, and engaging in financial dealings. She also admitted to being a courier between Guzmán and cartel members while he was in Mexico’s Altiplano prison after a 2014 arrest.
Her sentencing judge said Coronel had quickly accepted responsibility and agreed to forfeit nearly US $1.5 million of proceeds from her criminal activity to the U.S. government, and her three-year sentence was later reduced.
She was released from a low-security institution in Los Angeles on Sept. 13, 2023, after serving two and a half years.
Since then, she has reportedly devoted herself to modeling, and also appeared in a music video last year. The video was for “La Señora,” a corrido sung by Mariel Colón Miró that is inspired by the story of Coronel’s life.
Not only are Colón and Coronel close friends, but Colón was one of the lawyers who defended Guzmán when he was facing charges in New York. She is slated to appear on the catwalk in Milan, as well.
Coronel’s Milan gig — which caught her thousands of social media followers by surprise — was revealed last weekend in an Instagram post by April Black Diamond, often categorized as a designer whose clothes are bold, edgy, provocative and elegant.
“Not only will Emma be gracing us with her presence, but she has also been chosen to open and close the highly anticipated [show],” the designer wrote on the post featuring Coronel in a wedding dress.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” she wrote in an additional post explaining why she chose Coronel.
“That’s why I made the bold decision to hire an extraordinary woman as my main model, a woman who, despite a past marked by controversy, has chosen to rewrite her future,” she wrote. “She is not just a model for our dresses, she is an example of strength, courage and hope. Her journey from a troubled past to a promising future embodies the message I want to convey with this collection: it is never too late to change your life, and every woman deserves the chance to walk with pride and confidence, no matter where she comes from.”
Coronel reportedly has not seen her husband for five years, since his sentence allows him to see only his lawyers.
However, she still loves “El Chapo,” according to what she said recently on the Univision show “Despierta América.” When questioned on the topic, Coronel replied, “Love will always continue, of course, of course.”
Milan Fashion Week, one of the industry’s marquee events, concludes on Monday. It will be immediately followed by Paris Fashion Week through Oct. 1.
With reports from Infobae and El Financiero
