Inside Shakira's Fierce Chapter After Breakup From Gerard Piqué

Shakira Shuts Down Viral Theory About Breakup With Gerard Piqué

There's conscious uncoupling. And then there's what Shakira and Gerard Piqué did.

"The suffering I felt was probably the greatest I had ever experienced in my entire life, and it kept me from functioning at times," the Colombian singer, who's turning 48 on Feb. 2, told Rolling Stone last summer. "It felt like someone had stabbed a hole in my chest. And the sensation was so real, almost physical. I physically felt like I had a hole in my chest and that people could see through me."

So Shakira—who's enjoyed a platinum-selling career belting out rollicking songs about love, lust and heartbreak—took that feeling and ran with it.

"You left me the in-laws as my neighbors / Media outlets at my door and in debt," she sang in the unassumingly titled "BZRP Music Session #53," her smash-hit, Latin Grammy-winning collab with Argentine DJ Bizarrap that dropped in January 2023. "You thought you hurt me, but you made me stronger / Women don't cry anymore, they cash in."

And one more (translated-from Spanish-to-English) salvo for the road: "I wish you good luck with my supposed replacement / I don't even know what happened to you/ You are so strange that I can't even distinguish you / I'm worth two of 22 / You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo / You traded a Rolex for a Casio."

(To which Casio replied that the brand was a very durable choice for all your timekeeping and calculator needs, thank you very much.)

"I've had a very rough year after my separation, and writing this song has been so important to me," the Colombian artist, who's turning 48 on Feb. 2, said on The Tonight Show in March 2023. "It's been a healthy way to channel my emotions."

So there you go: She may not have been directly calling Marti a Twingo (which, BTW, is a little hatchback made by Renault), but she was definitely feeling some kind of way when she penned those lyrics.

And, really, the barbed breakup track was months in the making, Shakira and Piqué having confirmed in June 2022 that their 11-year relationship had come to an end. She has since moved to Miami with their sons Milan, 12, and Sasha, 10, after years of living primarily in Spain while Piqué, now retired, was a star center-back for FC Barcelona.

Shakira explained in an April 2, 2023, Instagram post that she relocated to be near her family and thanked the people of Barcelona for being so welcoming while she was there. She also pointedly noted that the friendships she'd formed in the capital city had ultimately lasted longer than the love.

"Thank you to everyone who cheered me up, dried my tears, inspired me and made me grow," she wrote, translated from the original Spanish.

Months later, despite her repeated denials of wrongdoing Shakira cut a deal with the Spanish government in her tax fraud case in November 2023, agreeing to pay a roughly $7.6 million fine. She also received a three-year suspended jail sentence.

"While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favor," she said in a statement, "I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight." (A separate investigation opened by Spanish prosecutors into alleged tax evasion on Shakira's part was dropped in May 2024.)

Throughout, at least she had her music, Shakira comparing songwriting to "going to the shrink, only cheaper."

"I think it's the best medicine," she explained, "and along with the love of my family and my kids that sustains me, music and writing music is definitely one of those tools—one of the few tools I have for survival in extreme conditions."

And once those feelings were out there...boy, were they out there.

Her zest was deservedly on display in the summer of 2023, shooting a video for her track "Copa Vacía" with Manuel Turizo, making the scene at Paris Fashion Week, sitting courtside at the NBA Finals and then stepping out for dinner with Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler.

That November, with Milan and Sasha cheering from the audience, Shakira's career Latin Grammy haul reached 14 as she won Song of the Year and Best Pop Song for "Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53" and Best Urban Fusion/Performance for "TQG" with Karol G—who wrote the track in the wake of the implosion of her relationship with rapper Anuel AA. ("BZRP Music Session #53" was the gift that kept on giving, scoring Shakira her 15th Latin Grammy when she won for Best Latin Electronic Music Performance at the 2024 ceremony.)

But "TQG" came about when, having gotten a read on Shakira's state of mind from her end-of-love song "Monotonía," Karol G reached out about a possible duet.

"Listening to that story and where she was at, the song 'TQG' made a lot of sense," the reggaeton star told Rolling Stone. "I sent it to her and she loved it." Short for "Te Quedó Grande," the title basically translates to "I'm too good for you."

Shakira has said that she used to buy into the old trope that a woman wasn't complete without a man in her life.

"I also had that dream to have a family where the kids had their mom and dad under the same roof," she told Mexico's Canal Estrellas in February 2023. "Not all of those dreams come true, but life has a way of compensating you in one way or another."

Accepting her Latin Woman of the Year honor in May 2023, Shakira touched on her own "year of seismic change." 

She explained, "I've realized we women are stronger than we think, braver than we believed, more independent than we were taught to be."

"Because," Shakira added, "what woman hasn't at some time in her life forgotten herself because she's seeking the attention and love of someone else? It happened to me, more than once."

Ultimately, she said, "There comes a time in the life of every woman where she no longer depends on someone else to love and accept herself just as she is. A time when the search for someone else is replaced by the search for oneself. A time when the desire to be perfect is replaced by the desire to be authentic, and where finding someone who is faithful is less important than being faithful to ourselves."

A year later, she told Rolling Stone, "This has been a journey back to myself, and the way there was through my music. I'm in a moment where the worst has happened, and this process woke up a new sense of autonomy and independence in me."

And it doesn't hurt that she's nominated for a 2025 Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album for Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. See what a bunch of this year's nominees had to say about the honor: