‘He Was Dragging Me Down’: Shakira Says She’s Done Taking Revenge And Making Music About Ex Gerard Piqué, Also Doesn’t Believe She’ll Ever Find Love Again Or Marry After Split | HO

After going back and forth with her ex-boyfriend Gerard Piqué, 37, for nearly two years — taking revenge and dropping song after song about him, his girlfriend, and even trolling Piqué’s mother — Shakira, 47, vows to stop making music about her ex, further claiming she’ll never marry because “he was dragging me down.”

After an 11-year relationship with the soccer star, the Colombian singer split from him in June 2022. The two met in 2010 on the set of her music video “Waka Waka,” and they became social media official in 2011. In 2013, the former couple welcomed their first child, a son named Milan, now 11, and two years later, their second son, Sasha, now 9. In November 2022, after a 12-hour custody meeting, the two eventually settled, with Shakira and her boys moving to Miami from Barcelona, where the children will spend holidays with their dad.

But before Shakira and Gerard Piqué could reach their settlement, things got really messy between the two. Less than three months after splitting, Piqué was spotted “passionately kissing” his new girlfriend, Clara Chia Marti, who is 22 years his junior. The August 2022 incident, which reportedly left Shakira “very angry,” arrived amid claims that Piqué and Shakira split because he allegedly cheated on her. She reportedly realized he was cheating when she discovered a jar of strawberry jam had been eaten while she was away.

Just two days after the sighting, the drama continued with Shakira fans were left believing that Piqué’s new girlfriend was “taunting” the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer on social media by listening to her music while flaunting her curves in a two-piece black bikini. Finally, in September 2022, Shakira broke her silence and addressed her “tough” split from Piqué, calling the moment “one of her darkest hours.”

Speaking with ELLE for their October cover, Shakira said, “I’ve remained quiet and just tried to process it all. Um, and yeah, it’s hard to talk about it, especially because I’m still going through it, and because I’m in the public eye, and because our separation is not like a regular separation. And so it’s been tough not only for me but also for my kids. Incredibly difficult.”

She continued, “You know, we can’t take a walk in the park like a regular family or go have an ice cream or do any activity without paparazzi following us. So it’s hard. I try to do it and to protect them because that’s my number one mission in life. But then they hear things in school from their friends or they come across some disagreeable, unpleasant news online, and it just affects them, you know?”

She added, “It’s real. And what’s also real is the disappointment to see something as sacred and as special as I thought was the relationship I had with my kids’ father and see that turned into something vulgarized and cheapened by the media. And all of this while my dad has been in the ICU and I’ve been fighting on different fronts. Like I said, this is probably the darkest hour of my life.”

In January 2023, the drama continued with Shakira and Gerard Piqué, along with his new girlfriend, Clara Chia Marti, and his mother, Montserrat Bernabeu. Before leaving her Barcelona home for Miami, Shakira made it evidently clear that her relationship with her ex did not end on good terms.

The singer reportedly sparked a family feud after placing a witch doll on the balcony of her Barcelona home and had it facing the house of her ex’s mother. Sources even claimed that neighbors could hear the singer “blasting” her latest song at the time on repeat, “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.” Shakira fans described the song as a diss track, claiming its lyrics took shots at Piqué and his new girlfriend.

In one part of the song, she sings in Spanish, “I’m worth two 22’s. You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo. You traded a Rolex for a Casio,” seemingly referring to Marti, who reportedly began dating Piqué at the age of 22. Shakira continues to sing, “You left my mother-in-law as my neighbor, with the press at the door and the debt in the Treasury.”

While the Colombian hitmaker was said to have shared a healthy relationship with Bernabeu, that’s all said to have changed after splitting from her son. That same month, Gerard Piqué responded to Shakira’s Casio lyric, “You exchanged a Rolex for a Casio,” by announcing a partnership with the watch brand and having them sponsor his 7-a-side Kings League.

Then in February 2023, Shakira again shaded Gerard Piqué’s new girlfriend. During her first TV interview since splitting from her ex, the “She Wolf” singer told Televisa, “There is a place in hell reserved for women who don’t support other women,” adding that she has learned to become a “lioness” for her two boys.

After breaking Spotify records with her alleged diss track “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” the singer added, “There are dreams that are broken and you have to pick up the little pieces from the ground and put yourself together again, and also be an example to my children. You don’t achieve all your dreams in life but life has a way of compensating you and I think life has certainly done it with me with the marvelous two children I have who fill me with love every day.”

That same month of her Televisa interview, Shakira also dropped more lyrics and digs at her ex on Karol G‘s “TQG.” By April 2023, the back and forth between Shakira and Gerard Piqué appeared to have gotten so bad that the soccer player suggested that her incessant digs over his alleged cheating affair made him suicidal.

During a Spanish radio interview, the athlete spoke about his longtime ex-girlfriend and mother of his two boys relentlessly attacking him on records and in real life. He said, “In the beginning, it was bad. And it reached a point where if I had let things get to me, I would have thrown myself off a cliff.”

He continued to note how Shakira’s fans had been ruthlessly attacking him as well, explaining, “For example, my ex is Latin American. You can’t imagine [the comments] I’ve gotten on social media from her fans. Millions of barbarities! But I don’t care about any of it. Honestly, not at all because I don’t know them. These people have no lives and why should I care? I’ll never meet them, they’re robots, you know? If you care about people’s opinions, you’re dead. They want you to worry and when you do, they would have won. You have to show them that you don’t care because it gets them angrier.”

In September 2023, Shakira was again accused of taking shots at her ex on her song “El Jefe,” which features Mexican regional band, Fuerza Regida. Since then, Shakira has now released a new album, ‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,’ which translates to Women No Longer Cry and is taken from a lyric on her hit “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.”

While speaking with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 ahead of the March 22 release of her 12th studio album, Shakira told Lowe that she’s officially closing off her musical chapter about Gerard Piqué with one last song: “Última,” a ballad where she expresses her gratitude for the time spent with her ex. She also noted that despite their attempts to reconcile, their mismatched lifestyles ultimately led to the demise of their decade-long relationship.

Shakira told Lowe the song, which almost didn’t make it on the album due to time constraints, made music executives cry. She said, “When I played this song to the head of marketing at Sony, he came, and he started to cry. I have never seen a man cry in my studio before. I’ve seen many women cry in my studio, but no man. Uh, but he’s a big softie. He started to cry with this song and I’m like, ‘OK, I get it.’ It’s not only about me. This song is not about me only, or him … But I’m glad I was able to include it in the album, even if it’s the last song, the last song that I write to him. I hope, but I could always change my mind.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Shakira told Lowe she may not ever find love again after her Gerard Piqué split. She said, “I thought love would be there forever for me, and that’s one of my broken dreams. I don’t know if I’d like to find that again. Probably not. I’ve always been in a couple, but then when that wasn’t there, and when I had to face the darkest moments of my life, friends were there and kept me together. I might not grow old with a partner, but I will grow old surrounded by good friends.

While Shakira mentions having a “husband,” she and Piqué were never officially married. However, they were together for over a decade. In February 2023, told Televisa, “I’ve always been emotionally quite dependent on men, I’ve fallen in love with love, and I think I’ve been able to understand that story from another perspective and today I am sufficient on my own. Now I’ve got more confidence in myself. I didn’t know I could end up being strong. I always thought I was more fragile. It’s true that I’ve got a bit of everything but you have to have faith.”