Fact-checking Sofia Vergara's 'Griselda,' Netflix's new show about the 'Godmother of Cocaine'

"Everyone on Earth, including the worst people in the world, have an explanation for why they are what they are, and why they do what they do," says "Griselda" co-creator and executive producer Eric Newman. "Even the worst people in the world are human beings."

Even Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco?

Netflix's six-part limited series "Griselda" (now streaming), starring Sofía Vergara ("Modern Family") as Blanco, is a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of the "Godmother of Cocaine" during the violent drug wars in Miami in the 1970s and '80s, told through a more humanizing lens.

Newman, who has spent more than a decade researching the Latin American drug trade, began working on "Griselda" in 2015 when Vergara reached out to him and said she'd like to portray Blanco on screen, he says.

Many of the books, documentaries and newspaper accounts of Blanco's life felt like a "misogynistic approach to the story of Griselda, and that just didn't appeal to us," Newman says. "We wanted a much more intimate examination of Griselda, and for one overriding reason … how unbelievably anomalistic it is that a woman rose to that level of prominence, that she achieved that level of respect, success and fear in such a male-dominated culture and business."

Read on to learn how "Griselda" compares with the drug lord's actual life.

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Who was Griselda Blanco?

Blanco, born in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1943, grew up in the 1970s when the cocaine drug trade was booming throughout South America, especially in her hometown. She grew up in poverty and became enmeshed in drugs, sex work and crime at a young age. She was "sex-trafficked, abused, underestimated and neglected ? you name it," Newman says.

During her reign smuggling tons of cocaine from Colombia into the U.S., Blanco was allegedly responsible for the deaths of more than 200 people in Colombia, Florida, New York and California. Her ruthless reign in Colombia lasted nearly five decades.

On Sept. 3, 2012, Blanco was gunned down by an assassin on a motorcycle as she walked out of a butcher shop in Medellín. She was 69.

Did Griselda really kill her husband Alberto Bravo?

The series begins with a flustered Griselda running into her house in Colombia, tending to a gunshot wound. She flees to Miami with her three sons ? Dixon (Orlando Pineda), Ozzy (Martín Fajardo) and Uber (Jose Velazquez) ? to start a new life, and throughout the episode, we see glimpses of what she ran away from.

In the show, Griselda's husband, Alberto Bravo, asks her to sleep with his brother Fernando to absolve them of a debt owed to Fernando from a failed cocaine shipment. At the end of the premiere episode, Griselda shoots Alberto in a fit of rage.

There is no evidence Griselda was really forced to have sex with Alberto's brother, but according to Vice, she accused Alberto of stealing millions from the business and killed him during a shootout.

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How many sons did Griselda Blanco have?

Unlike in the series, she never had children with Alberto, but she did have three children with her first husband, Carlos Trujillo, who is not mentioned in the show.

He was a pimp and document forger, and she married him when she was 13. According to Vice, business got in the way of her first marriage, too, and she had Carlos killed.

What happened to Griselda's youngest son, Michael Corleone?

In "Griselda," Blanco is already a mother of three when she begins a relationship with Darío Sepulveda (Alberto Guerra) and has a child with him, her youngest son, Michael Corleone.

At the end of the series, Darío leaves Griselda and takes their son with him to protect him. But in real life, Griselda didn't take that lightly and had him assassinated.

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What didn't make it into Netflix's 'Griselda'?

"When you have a limited amount of real estate, you need to pull characters in sometimes through other characters," Newman says. The men in Griselda's life were all part of the Medellín drug scene that "predated our story," he adds, so timelines were condensed.

There's one story in particular about how Darío, a hit man, and Griselda met that Newman "loved so much" but didn't make the cut.

"A friend of hers had brought Griselda and Darío to a restaurant in Medellín," he says. "A couple of tables over, there were some men who recognized Griselda who were harassing her and catcalling her, and Darío very coolly pulled a gun out and shot and killed all three of them. To Griselda, it was the most romantic thing."

In the show, both meet the night she's forced to sleep with Alberto's brother. The two reconnect when he's sent to Miami to find her to avenge her late husband's death.

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How was Griselda Blanco convicted?

After evading the police for a decade, Griselda was arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 1985 and charged with conspiring to manufacture, import and distribute cocaine. Her case went to trial in federal court in New York, where she was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years.

In prison, she was charged with three counts of first-degree murder by the state of Florida, including the fatal shooting of one of her former enforcer's 2-year-old son, who as depicted in "Griselda" was killed during a failed attempt on his father's life.

In 1998, she pleaded guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. In 2004, she was granted compassionate release from prison and deported to Colombia.

Is Karol G's character in 'Griselda' based on a real person?

Colombian singer/songwriter Karol G makes her acting debut in "Griselda." She portrays Carla, a young woman who works for Griselda and later becomes one of her most important employees.

But is Karol G's character based on a real person? Newman says no.

Why is Netflix, Sofia Vergara being sued by Griselda's family?

The estate of the Colombian drug lord filed a lawsuit against Netflix and Vergara on Jan. 17 in an attempt to halt the show's release, claiming the unauthorized use of their family's image and likeness.

Blanco's son Michael is seeking $100,000 in damages in Florida's Miami-Dade County court, accusing the show's creators of using his unreleased "artistic literary work" and his likeness "to depict the life story of himself and his mother, Griselda Blanco De Trujillo" without permission or credit.

Ahead of the "Griselda" premiere, Newman told TODAY that a lawsuit from Blanco's estate "comes with the territory." He added, "I dealt with similar suits from Pablo Escobar, his family, during the making of 'Narcos.' I tend not to think much about them. It just feels a little bit unsurprising."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Netflix's 'Griselda': What happened to Griselda Blanco's son Michael?