MADRID — Colombian superstar
Shakira and FC Barcelona
defender Gerard Pique announced Saturday they were calling time on their
relationship of more than a decade.
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The 45-year-old "Hips don't Lie" songstress is one
of the biggest names in the global music industry and has sold more than 60
million albums.
Spanish football hero Pique, 35, won the
2010 World Cup and
the 2012 European Championship and is a three-time Champions League winner with
Barcelona.
The couple share two sons and had been living together for
years on the outskirts of Barcelona.
"We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the
well-being of our children, who are our upmost priority, we request respect for
(our) privacy," they said in a statement.
With her mix of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence,
three-time Grammy winner Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin
America, scoring major global hits with songs such as "Hips don't
Lie" and "Whenever, Wherever".
In 2020, she performed with
Jennifer Lopez at the halftime
show of the NFL's Super Bowl championship final in Miami, typically one of the
most-watched half-hours in US television.
The couple announced their separation just over a week after
Spanish court documents inched Shakira closer to standing trial in Spain for
tax fraud after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer.
Spanish prosecutors accuse her of defrauding the Spanish tax
office out of 14.5 million euros ($15.5 million) on income earned between 2012
and 2014.
They say she moved to Spain in 2011 when her relationship
with Pique became public but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas
until 2015.
Her defense lawyers say she moved to Spain full time only in
2015 and insist that her "conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable
in all the countries she had to pay taxes".
In an interview with AFP in 2019, Shakira said temporarily
losing her voice two years earlier had been "the darkest moment of her
life" and affected her "deeply".
She later recovered her voice naturally, without needing to
undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and subsequently carried out a world
tour in 2018.
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