Virginia Vallejo

Virginia Vallejo García (born 26 August 1949) is a Colombian author, journalist, television and radio director, anchorwoman, model, columnist, socialite, and political asylee in the United States of America.

She is one of the most relevant media personalities of her native country, known for her interviews of presidents, politicians, international celebrities, musicians, authors and scientists. She has been international editor of television newscasts and also anchorwoman, when she won twice the prize as the best anchorperson of Colombia. Her programs for ''TV Impacto'', her own company, obtained the highest ratings compared to her competition. She was image and model of ''Di Lido'' pantyhose, with commercials made in Venice, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan, Bogotá and Cartagena de Indias. She has been invited by foreign governments, like Israel and Taiwan, to cover historical events. Virginia was the only Colombian journalist in charge of the radio transmission of the “Wedding of the century” of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana, in London in 1981, and the first journalist to interview Pablo Escobar in 1983, when he was only a rookie politician. She made other many type of television programs, like musical shows with the most famous singers and orchestras of her time. Due to her voice, education, beauty and elegance, Vallejo has become an icon of the Colombian media, and thanks to her unique story, a contemporary legend. She is now a bestseller author, translated to many languages.

On 18 July 2006, the DEA took her out of Colombia in a special flight to save her life and cooperate with the Department of Justice in high-profile cases, after she had signaled several Colombian presidents and politicians as beneficiaries or accomplices of the leading cocaine cartels.

In 2007, she published her first book, ''Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar'', which led the Colombian Supreme Court to reopen the cases of the Palace of Justice siege in 1985, and the assassination of the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in 1989. The book was translated to fifteen languages and made into a movie in 2018, with the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz in the role of the journalist.

Since 2006, Virginia Vallejo lives in Miami, Florida. In 2009, she became a columnist of a Venezuelan opposition newspaper, and, in 2019, television journalist for the international channel Actualidad RT. In January 2024, she announced the upcoming release of her first novel of a trilogy, a saga inspired in the recent history of Colombia and her personal life. Provided by Wikipedia