Meet Maria Victoria Henao, Pablo Escobar's Wife For 17 Years

Publish date: 2024-03-07

Maria Victoria Henao is the widowed wife of Pablo Escobar, the late Columbian drug lord. Maria is 62 years old and was married to Pablo for 17 years until his death in 1993.

Maria met Escobar when she was just 12 years old through her brother Carlos. Despite the fact that she was under-aged, Pablo started dating Maria and got her pregnant at the age of 14. The drug lord aborted her first pregnancy and went on to wed Maria when she clocked 15. The couple’s 17-year-long marriage produced two children, a boy Juan and a daughter Manuela. Luckily, neither Juan nor Manuela followed their father into a life of crime. Maria is now a grandmother as Juan is a father of two.

Summary of Maria Victoria Henao’s Biography

How Old is Maria Victoria Henao Now?

Maria Victoria Henao’s current age is 62 as the wife of the late drug kingpin was born sometime in 1961. Her birth occurred in Palmira, Colombia, and needless to say, she is a Columbian by nationality, though her ethnic background is obviously Latina.

Maria’s parents have been accurately identified as Carlos Henao Vallejo and his wife, Leonor Zuleta. She has one brother called Carlos (named after their dad), who worked for her husband Pablo Escobar.

Maria and her brother Carlos grew up in Palmira Valle del Cauca, located in southwest Colombia, where she also went to school. However, Maria was not able to complete her education as she got married and had her first child at age 15.

How Did Maria Victoria Henao Meet her Late Husband, Pablo Escobar

It was through Maria Victoria Henao’s brother, Carlos, that she met Pablo for the first time. At that time, Maria was barely 12, while the drug kingpin was already a grown man of 23 and well on his way to building his formidable drug cartel.

Maria’s parents disapproved of their relationship as their entire neighborhood viewed Pablo as a distrustful individual who does nothing but ride his Vespa in their neighborhood; his dad was a watchman.

Even though she was underage, Maria said that Pablo worked really hard to seduce her with gifts of a yellow bicycle and music Ballard serenades. This, she said, convinced her that he was her Prince Charming, and she started feeling like the proverbial fairy princess.

Maria said their first kiss left her paralyzed with fear as she didn’t understand the meaning of that kind of intimacy. By the time she turned 14, their relationship became sexual, resulting in her first pregnancy.

Pablo forced Maria Victoria Henao to abort the pregnancy at a back-alley abortion clinic where an old woman lied to her that she was going to do something that would help in preventing pregnancies in the future. However, Maria didn’t understand a thing, she didn’t even know she was pregnant.

Even after the excruciating pain of abortion, Maria continued seeing Pablo; she even described him as “affectionate,” “sweet,” and “a gentleman”. She called him a great lover and the first and only love of her life.

Maria Became Pablo Escobar’s Wife at Age 15

With the trauma that came with her abortion forgotten, Maria accepted Pablo’s marriage proposal in 1976 when she just turned 15. The duo was joined on March 29, 1976, at a six o’clock mass at the Santisima Trinidad church located in Palmira.

Maria said she was taken to Monsignor Jesus Antonio Castro (the bishop of Palmira) by her grandmother on that day, and none of her parents and siblings agreed to attend the ceremony, and the same goes for her husband’s family members.

As she was still a high school student, Maria said she started her life as a married woman by attending school in the morning and going home to do housework in the afternoon, and the experience was so thrilling.

From the place they were living, the couple moved to the notorious Antioguia estate, Hacienda Napoles, which became the epicenter of Pablo’s drug courier business.

Maria Victoria Henao’s Life After Marriage

Maria Victoria Henao revealed that she grew up in a society where women’s major role in marriage is to follow their spouses without asking any questions. With that kind of upbringing, it was easy for Pablo to mold her into a submissive wife and mother to his children. She never asked any questions, never challenged him in anything, she just looks the other way.

Maria said Pablo never bothered to reveal his line of business to her, but he was constantly away and stayed for so long. Besides, the large amount of money that was coming in was rather suspicious.

In the initial stage, she was looking the other way and enjoying the perks of being the wife of a very rich man. It was several years of flying in private jets, wearing the best of fashion, and enjoying world-class artwork.

As time rolled by, Maria said she grew to dislike nearly everything about Pablo’s world – the drug pedaling, the accompanying violence, his love affairs, and many more. At a point in the marriage, Pablo built a bachelor’s pad in their state where he entertained his female friends. She was never interested in having anything to do with the cartel and never did, however, the mother of two stayed with her husband until 1993, when he met his brutal death at the hands of the authorities.

Even after uncovering his life of crime, Maria Victoria Henao still maintains that her love for the late drug kingpin was true even though he made her pass through so much pain and also made their country Columbia bleed. Their union was 17 years at the time of his demise.

Maria Victoria Henao Has Two Kids With Pablo

Maria’s union with Pablo produced two children – a boy called Juan Pablo and a girl, Manuela Pablo.

Maria wrote in her memoir that she was a secondary school student in fourth grade when she became a first-time mother at the age of 15. Her first son, Juan Pablo, arrived on the 24th of February 1977, and it wasn’t up to a year after they tied the nuptials. Maria said she was in the classroom when the contraction started and was lucky to get to the hospital to safely deliver her baby without any issues.

Juan is now all grown up, and unlike his father, he has nothing to do with a life of crime. Maria Victoria Henao’s only son chose a career path in architecture, and because of the stigma of his father’s criminal activities, he had to change his name from Juan Pablo to Sebastián Marroquín.

Though he was still very young when his dad ruled the underworld of drug trafficking in Columbia, Juan grew up to distance himself from anything that has to do with a life of crime, and in addition, he was quite vocal about condemning Pablo and his nefarious activities in Columbia. Juan went out of his way to meet some of his dad’s victims, which are captured in the documentary Sins of My Father, which revolves around the life and death of the drug lord.

Juan is also an author with one book to his name. Using his given name, he titled the publication “Pablo Escobar: My Father (2014)”. The drug lord’s only son is already a family man, his children are listed as Santiago Montoya and Juan Emilio Escobar

Maria Victoria Henao’s second child is her daughter Manuela Escobar. Nothing much is known about Pablo’s daughter, but it is common knowledge that she is the only one that didn’t change her name in the family. Manuela had to go through the home-schooling process after her family was linked to a money-laundering crime.

What Happened to Maria Victoria Henao?

The assassination of Pablo Escobar was celebrated all over the world, but it was a case of different strokes for his family members as they mourned him quietly and fearfully. Pablo had previously informed Maria that it was time to pack their suitcases, and as the other members of the cartel were being rounded up, she took her two children and fled from their home country Columbia.

She first tried seeking asylum from Germany but met with resistance. She also tried Mozambique in Africa but to no avail. Following her rejection in both countries, Maria went to settle in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.

However, life in Argentina was not really easy for Pablo Escobar’s wife and her two children. They were barely a few years old in the country when new challenges started setting in. It happened that Maria and Juan were enmeshed in a money-laundering case that led to their arrest in Argentina.

The duo went behind bars for seven months, and when the Argentine authorities couldn’t find enough evidence to nail them, mother and son eventually regained their freedom. Talking to the media outlets after her release, Maria Victoria Henao said they only arrested her because she was the wife of Pablo Escobar and not because of what they alleged that she did. They only wanted to prove to the world that their country is combating drug trafficking by trying the ghost of Pablo Escobar. I went to prison in Argentina because I’m Columbian, Maria said.

Talking about Maria’s love life post-marriage, the mother of two has never said anything about getting married for the second time. Many have reasoned that she may have remained true to her husband even in death. This is deduced from a line in her memoir where she referred to Pablo as her first and only love.

What Name Does Maria Victoria Henao Go By Now?

After she arrived in Buenos Aires in Argentina, Maria saw the urgent need to change her name to avoid easy recognition and future embarrassment. The wife of the late drug kingpin eventually decided to start bearing Victoria Henao Vallejos.

At a point in her life, the mother of two was referred to as Maria Isabel Santos Caballero, but in recent times, she has been answering to Victoria Eugenia Henao. However, we must note that all the change of name did not save her from being indicted in a money-laundering crime in Argentina.

Maria Broke Her Silence Through A Book

After she left prison in Argentina, Maria Victoria Henao decided to shun the spotlight for a very long time, and for almost two decades, nothing was heard about the widow of Pablo Escobar. However, she recently broke her silence through the release of her memoir, Mrs. Escobar: My Life with Pablo. The book chronicled her life as the wife of the drug kingpin and her own enigmatic personality.

To the mother of two, the love she felt for her late husband was so difficult to reconcile with all the appalling things he did to people and their country Columbia at large. Talking about her experience, Maria said she feels nothing, but shame and sadness for the huge pain Pablo caused during his reign in the underworld.

In 2018, Maria was interviewed by Colombia’s W Radio, where she rendered a heartfelt apology to the entire country for her late spouse’s reign of terror. Asking for forgiveness for her youthful exuberance and all that she did then, Maria maintained that she never had anything to do with the cartel and was not even having a good life then. The only role she played in the whole thing was being a good wife and protecting her kids from harm. She is now living a peaceful life with her daughter Manuela Escobar and Pablo’s mother.

Did Maria Inherit Pablo’s Wealth

To date, nothing has been said about the portion of Pablo’s wealth that Maria inherited, if at all she got something. However, it is common knowledge that the Columbian authorities confiscated all they could lay their hands on.

The late drug lord’s net worth before his death was 30 billion, and he was listed as the globe’s richest criminal of all time. When his drug empire was operating at optimum, it was raking in over $70 million on a daily basis.

With all that said, we must also acknowledge the story that claims Pablo set a huge sum aside for his family’s upkeep in the case of his eventual demise, but it later came to the fore that the purported money never reached Maria and her children and its whereabouts have remained a mystery to date.

The authorities were prompt in seizing the drug lord’s landed properties, gold, cash, platinum, automobiles, and many more, though many of these things were said to be untraceable to date.

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