Shakira revealed she “grieved” her divorce from ex-husband, former FC Barcelona star Gerard Piqué, through writing music.
In a cover story for GQ Spain, which includes a sultry photo shoot spread of the Columbian singer, Shakira explained how she was able to begin healing after their 2022 split.
“It wasn’t easy to recognize all the vulnerability I was feeling at the time I wrote this album [‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran], and then to lay it bare,” Shakira said of her most recent body of work, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,” which translates in Spanish to “Women No Longer Cry.”
“For many months after my separation I had been silent, trying to begin my mourning, but I couldn’t really begin to grieve until I started writing music. It was my way of healing. And it continues to be.
“Grief is a process that is not linear. It is full of peaks and valleys.”
Shakira and Piqué announced their separation in June 2022 after 12 years together and two sons, Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9.
Rumors of infidelity followed and Shakira denied a January 2023 report that claimed a jam jar alerted her of Piqué cheating.
The 47-year-old singer referenced her music video for “Monotonía” featuring Ozuna, which shows her crying in a supermarket while searching for her heart on the floor.
“In this video I walk around with a hole in my chest because that’s how I felt,” she said. “It was my physical sensation. Then, when I wrote ‘Session 53’ with Bizarrap, that’s when I started to feel light. I was like, “Biza, I feel like I’m floating right now. I feel like I got a demon out.”
Shakira went on to explain how her vision of love has changed over the years, and that her song “Última” — which is included on her new album and talks about learning to be alone — is a lie.
“It’s not the same,” she said of how she now views love. “The love of a partner disappointed me. It affected my idiosyncrasy. It’s inevitable, at least for the moment, that I have lost trust in the other. The healing process is long.
“It will take me several albums!” Shakira joked. “It’s a lie that with ‘Última’ I was going to get rid of everything. There’s always more to dig up.”
Shakira’s interview was published just days after Piqué reflected on their public split and seemingly implied “the truth” has yet to come out.
“In the end, the truth or what happens or occurs is not told in the way it was,” Piqué told CNN en Español in an Oct. 18 interview translated from Spanish. “I cannot control this.
“The best thing is that in the end I am surrounded by my loved ones, my family, my friends, the people who really know you. They know what you are like and what you do, and that gives me a lot of peace of mind.”
Piqué, 36, and his girlfriend Clara Chia Marti, 25, went public after posing for a selfie on Instagram in January 2023.
Shakira is finalizing preparations for a tour, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” in 2025, following the success of her 2020 Super Bowl performance.
“It is the most ambitious tour of my entire career, the biggest production I have had so far,” she said. “I deserve the tour of my life. I’m throwing the house out the window.”