Shakira Calls the Piqué Breakup the Worst Moment of Her Life: Now She's Grateful for It
For Shakira, the end of her 11-year relationship with Gerard Piqué in June 2022 didn't arrive gradually. It hit all at once.
In a new interview with The Times, the 49-year-old Grammy winner described the breakup with detail unseen in the years of tabloid coverage. It was, she said, the moment she watched 'the dissolution of my family, the family that I had dreamt to keep forever.' What made it nearly unbearable that while navigating the end of her relationship, Shakira was also sitting with her father, William Mebarak Chadid, who had flown to Barcelona to support her and suffered a severe fall at their son Milan's First Communion. The man she needed most was suddenly the one who needed her.
Those who followed the public story (the diss track, the tax fraud case, the move to Miami), may have assumed they already knew how Shakira processed the loss. What the new interview reveals is that she's still working through what it meant. 'I've been through so much pain,' she told the Times, 'but it has made me perhaps in an unforeseen way a wiser person, or stronger, at least.'
The gratitude she's arrived at may be surprising to some. She told The Times that despite everything, she holds genuine appreciation for Piqué. 'I will always have that gratitude in my heart for the father of my kids and for turning me into the mother that I am today.' The fact that the woman who wrote 'BZRP Music Session #53', a song that put Ferrari-vs.-Twingo comparisons on the global pop culture map, shows where four years of hard work can get you.
The friends showed up for her, she says. Shakira has spoken about howChris Martin sent her a photograph of a cracked vase mended with gold, with a note that read 'you're going to be so much stronger once this is over.' Adelewas also in her corner. The image of a pop star at the lowest point of her public and private life, sustained by a photo and a promise from another artist, is the kind of thing that makes a person's pain more real to those who see her as just a pop star.
Shakira's Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry) took home the Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in February 2025. The album title, it turns out, was more true than anyone knew.
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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 12:15 PM.