Shakira: 'I put my career on hold’ for ex Gerard Pique. Colombian singer to release first album in seven years

Singer and Spain defender parted ways after 11 years - and now he is set to face the music
William Mata16 March 2024

Shakira has said she put her "career on hold" for a long time to support Gerard Pique as he continued playing football. 

The Colombian pop superstar and former Spanish footballer, who share sons Sasha, nine, and Mila, 11, together, announced they were separating after 11 years in June 2022.

Their infamously scrappy split saw Shakira release a diss song aimed at him, containing the lyric: “You swapped a Ferrari for a [Renault] Twingo, you swapped a Rolex for a Casio.”

Pique responded by wearing a Casio watch and driving to training in a Renault Twingo. Shakira also alleged he cheated on her with his now 23-year-old girlfriend. 

Shakira is back with a new album after seven years
PA Archive

Pique has since gone public with his new partner Clara Chia Marti while Shakira has said she has focused her time on the children. 

But the 47-year-old Grammy winner is now back in the spotlight and set to release Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran - which translates as Women No Longer Cry. 

She said her first album in seven years, which is out on March 22, has helped her "exorcise a lot of the demons".

"For a long time I put my career on hold, to be next to Gerard, so he could play football,” she told The Times. 

"There was a lot of sacrifice for love."

As well as the spat with Pique, Shakira has also been fighting a tax dispute case which ended in November when she accepted a £6 million fine

Discussing her upcoming album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, she said it represents "the transformation of pain into creativity, frustration into productivity, anger into passion, vulnerability into resilience".

She added: "There were so many pieces of my life that crumbled in front of my eyes and I had to rebuild myself in a way, picking up the bones from the floor and putting them all together. And the glue that kept it all together was music."

The album includes Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53, which is the Pique diss track. 

The Times reports another track on the album titled Ultima (Last) also hears her sing: "Surely with time you'll regret it, and some day you'll want to come back to my door."

Asked if this was also in relation to Pique, she replied: "Voldemort, that one that shouldn't be mentioned? It's hopefully the last song that I will write about this, and to him."

She added: "I felt that there was still something there, stuck in my throat, and I needed to get it out.”

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