Rafael Vergara was Sofía’s older brother when he was shot and killed during a failed kidnapping attempt in Colombia. He had remained a target. According to the actress herself, he knew he was a kidnapping target and always had bodyguards with him, until the day he went out alone. She, who was then raising her young son Manolo, had to take responsibility for the entire family. She said the crime devastated her mother and changed their lives completely.
After the murder, Sofía took her mother, sister, and younger brother, Julio, to live with her in Miami. But the pain didn’t stay in Colombia. Julio fell into a downward spiral of alcohol and drugs that included marijuana, cocaine, and crack. He amassed more than 30 arrests, and in 2011, an immigration judge ordered him deported from the country: he was sent back to Colombia.
Years later, while portraying drug trafficker Griselda Blanco in the Netflix series, Vergara acknowledged that the wound gave her a very personal perspective on that world. What was fiction for the audience had a face from her own family.
