20 Facts About Virginia Vallejo

Virginia Vallejo Garcia was born on 26 August 1949 and is a Colombian author, journalist, television director, anchorwoman, media personality, socialite, and political asylee in the United States of America.

Virginia Vallejo was born on 26 August 1949 in Cartago, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, near her family's ranch.

Virginia Vallejo's parents were Juan Vallejo Jaramillo, an entrepreneur, and Mary Garcia Rivera.

Virginia Vallejo's paternal grandmother, Sofia Jaramillo Arango, was a descendant of Alonso Jaramillo de Andrade Cespedes y Guzman, a nobleman from Extremadura, Spain.

Virginia Vallejo studied first in the kindergarten of Elvira Lleras Restrepo, sister of President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, a friend of her family.

Virginia Vallejo was the only journalist sent by a Colombian media outlet to London to cover the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July 1981.

Virginia Vallejo covered the Miss Colombia pageant for the same station until 1985.

In 2019, Virginia Vallejo returned to her work as a television journalist for the international channel RT en Espanol or Actualidad RT.

In early July 2006, Virginia Vallejo offered her testimony in the case against Alberto Santofimio, a former Justice Minister and associate of Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel and her lover from 1983 to 1987.

All of Escobar's hitmen in the crime and several key witnesses against Santofimio had been killed, so Virginia Vallejo contacted the American Embassy in Bogota and asked the US Government to help save her life in exchange for information on the associates of Pablo Escobar and brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela of the Cali cartel, Pablo Escobar's nemesis.

Virginia Vallejo's flight made news worldwide, and a home video that Virginia Vallejo had taped before her departure to protect her life was aired by Canal RCN of Colombia; according to the channel, it was watched by 14 million people, with higher rates of audience than the Football World Cup final of 2006 on 9 July.

Virginia Vallejo's memoir became the number one bestselling Spanish-language book in both Colombia and the United States.

Virginia Vallejo knew that if returned to Colombia, she would be killed, like several witnesses in the cases vs Alberto Santofimio and the bosses of the Cali cartel.

In July 2008, the Colombian Government ordered Virginia Vallejo to testify in the reopened case of the Palace of Justice siege, a massacre that cost the lives of more than 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court Justices, rebels of the M-19, government agents, and dozens of unarmed civilians.

In July 2009, Virginia Vallejo testified in the reopened case of the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan which occurred on 18 August 1989, and signaled Alberto Santofimio as the main instigator of the candidate's assassination.

All of them were fictional, and produced by two Colombian television channels owned by billionaires that Virginia Vallejo had mentioned in the memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar; or co-produced with a cousin of President Juan Manuel Santos that Virginia Vallejo had accused of corruption in her book, columns and interviews.

Virginia Vallejo was never fired to be replaced by a younger presenter, or threatened her directors or anyone.

Virginia Vallejo was not living in Colombia during Escobar's bombings and kidnappings, and she never visited Escobar in La Catedral prison.

Virginia Vallejo had ended her relationship with Escobar in 1987, never saw him again, and spent the following years in Germany.

In Latin America, including Colombia, the title of the movie was changed to Escobar's Treason, possibly to distance Leon de Aranoa's fictional narrative from Virginia Vallejo's events described in Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar.