What did the real Griselda look like? The face of the woman Netflix's new crime series is based on

For the last few weeks, much of the world has been captured by the story of infamous drug lord Griselda Blanco – so much so the crime series sits firmly in the top spot of TV programmes to watch on Netflix.

And people have questions – lots of questions. But the one everyone is asking right now is what the real Griselda looked like. Sofia Vergara's transformation into Griselda has had a lot of coverage, but images of what the transformation was based on are, rather unsurprisingly, sparse. 

However images of the real Griselda are surfacing, as more people seem desperate to know what she looked like. So what did the real Griselda Blanco look like?

One of the best images we've seen comes from director Billy Corben – the man behind the 2006 crime documentary Cocaine Cowboys, which explores the true story of how Miami became the drug capital of the US in the 1980s. 

Corben shared the image below on X back in 2012, accompanying the picture with a caption that reads: 'Griseldo Blanco mugshot after her 1985 arrest in California'.

We weren't entirely sure what to expect when seeing the real Griselda for the first time, but her face didn't immediately scream criminal mastermind – which may well help explain how she evaded the authorities for so long.

Sofia Vergara's prosthetics in the series have been controversial with her family. Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Blanco’s youngest and only living son, Michael Corleone Blanco, called the transformation 'disrespectful'. He added, "My mother was a beautiful woman, and it’s crazy that a lot of people say, 'No, you’ve got to look more like a drug addict.'... The fact that they call her 'ugly' really offends me."

Whatever she looks like, people are gripped by her story. Almost two decades after Cocaine Cowboys was released, the new Netflix crime series Griselda is a big hit. And every day people are asking more questions, with some of the most pressing being where are Griselda's children now, what happened to her money, who is Rivi, and are the Ocheo brothers real people?

There are more images of the real Griselda Blanco in the crime documentary Cocaine Cowboys (and in the trailer on YouTube), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006. The film delves into the cocaine trade of the 70s and 80s in Miami, explaining how it turned from a quiet retirement community at the time, to the epicentre of a multi-billion dollar business fed by the Colombian cartel. 

Part of the documentary explores the gangland in Miami at the time, and interviewees suggest Griselda Blanco played a major role in the drug trade in Miami. In these scenes, there are photos of Griselda, in which she looks very different to her mugshot above. 

Griselda is available to watch on Netflix now