She said he was "completely shackled, handcuffed," at the time, and guards at the facility stayed close by.
She also claimed that Guzman was "slowly being tortured" and that his blood pressure was high.
"I am afraid for his life," she said.
The interview with Coronel aired on Telemundo and was the basis for the Times story, a collaborative project with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California at Berkeley.
Guzman was captured in early January, about six months after he had tunneled out of Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, which is also known as Altiplano prison.
Before his capture, however, he was interviewed by actor Sean Penn, a meeting that led to a piece published in Rolling Stone.
Guzman had escaped the federal facility outside of Mexico City in July 2015, slipping out through a hole in the floor of his cell. Now that he's back in custody, authorities in Mexico have begun the extradition process to the U.S.
"I will follow to wherever he is," Coronel said. "I am in love with him. He is the father of my children."
Coronel, a former beauty queen, and Guzman are the parents of twin girls.
The pair married in 2007, on the day Coronel turned 18, according to the Times report. Guzman is 32 years older than Coronel, his third wife.
"I would say what won me over was his way of talking, how he treated me, the way we began to get along, first as friends and from that came everything else," Coronel said.
"He tends to win over people by his manner of being, of acting, the way he treats people in general."
