Shakira and longtime partner, Gerard Piqué, have called it quits, according to a joint statement released by Shakira’s publicists on Saturday.
“We regret to confirm that we are separating,” the statement read. “For the well-being of our children, who are our highest priority, we ask that you respect our privacy. Thank you for your understanding.”
Shakira, the Colombian-born pop sensation with three Grammys, seven Billboard Music Awards, 12 Latin Grammys, and a Chevalier medal from France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, first confirmed that she was dating the Spanish soccer star in 2011.
The two met in South Africa, while shooting the video for “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa),” which served as the anthem for 2010’s FIFA World Cup. The song was recorded with the South African group Freshlyground, mixing pop and Afrobeat, and was an international smash hit.
Piqué has played the centre-back position for Britain’s Manchester United team and Barcelona’s Futbol Club Barcelona. (Spanish soccer wags have suggested that Barcelona’s management hopes the star will retire to avoid paying his enormous contracted salary.)
Piqué and Shakira, 45, have two children, ages nine and seven.
Observant Shakira fans may have suspected something was up, as People has suggested, after a close listen to her latest single “Te Felecito,” a duet with Rauw Alejandro. The lyrics include lines that translate to “For completing you, I broke myself into pieces/They warned me, but I didn’t pay attention/I realised that your love is false/It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Eyebrows had been raised by observers – and some even feared the worst could happen – when, only very recently, El Periodico journalist, Emilio Pérez de Rozas, Barcelona defender Gerard Pique and long-term partner Shakira have allegedly been living separately for a number of weeks.
Emilio Perez appeared on a live video stream of the podcast Mamarazzis, which is posted every Wednesday on the Instagram and Facebook accounts of the El Periodico newspaper. The journalist claimed that the world-renowned popstar caught Pique cheating with another woman a few weeks back, which has led to the alleged split.
Pique had reportedly moved out of the house that he shares with Shakira. The Barcelona defender has been living in his bachelor pad for a number of weeks. The report claimed that Pique lives a “party lifestyle” and regularly frequents nightclubs such as the Bling Bling and Patron in Barcelona, while also adding that the pair could ‘separate’ soon.
While the veracity of the claims is not certain, the journalist claimed the following:
“That is why she (Shakira) would have made the decision to separate,” adds Fa, who has directly quoted the information from his sources: “That is so. It has happened. That is why there is distance. Perhaps there is nothing left, but that [infidelity] has passed”
Pique’s legendary Barcelona career could be winding down to an end.
At the age of 35, Pique is no longer Barcelona’s main defender. The past season saw the likes of Ronald Araujo and Eric Garcia being used more often by Xavi Hernandez, who even handed Lenglet a few starts towards the end of the La Liga season.
Pique appeared in 41 games across all competitions in the 2021-22 campaign, but his gametime is set to be curtailed to a great extent next season. Apart from Xavi trusting the two youngsters in Araujo and Garcia, Chelsea defender Andreas Christensen is also reportedly set to join the club, having agreed a deal to sign for the La Liga giants on a free transfer.
Meanwhile, in January 2021, Shakira sold off her songwriting catalog to the British music publisher Hipgnosis. The sum was not disclosed, but at the time of sale, she was reported to be the most successful female Latin singer of all time, with more than 80 million album sales under her belt.
Hipgnosis, a publicly-traded company, was founded in 2018 by Nile Rodgers and Merck Mercuriadis, and also boasts songs from the catalogs of Fleetwood Mac, Mark Ronson, Steve Winwood, the B-52s, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Justin Timberlake, Barry Manilow, RZA, and many other artists you may not otherwise associate with each other.
