Shakira bluntly outlined the desired impact of her latest release for its intended recipient. “This is for you to be mortified.”
Gerard Pique, the four-time Champions League winner with Manchester United and chiefly Barcelona, is widely considered to be the target of Shakira’s viral diss track. The high-profile pair publicly announced their split after an 11-year relationship, which brought the birth of two children, in June 2022 with a 31-word joint statement.
The 45-year-old Colombian singer appears to have gotten a few things off her chest about her ex-partner with a slightly longer, sharp-tongued track made in collaboration with the Argentinian DJ Bizarrap, entitled “BZRP Music Sessions #53”.
In a little more than three-and-a-half minutes, Shakira manages to question Pique’s intelligence, pour scorn over his new partner, tip-toe around an ongoing legal battle and bring his mother into it as well. That is, of course, if the song is in fact directed at Pique – who is never explicitly mentioned by name.
The most straightforward insult in the diss track comes towards the end of the session: “Lots of time at the gym, but your brain needs a little work too”. After announcing his surprise retirement from Barcelona shortly before the World Cup, Pique doesn’t need to keenly focus on his fitness anymore – although, there are whispers of a possible return to the pitch for the 35-year-old.
In the absence of elite football, Pique has diverted his attention towards his numerous entrepreneurial ventures, one of which actually received a sponsorship deal thanks to Shakira’s song.
“You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo. You traded a Rolex for a Casio,” Shakira sings on the record, not so subtly hinting at the perceived downgrade Pique has suffered when comparing herself to Clara Chia Marti, the 35-year-old’s reported new partner.
Pique revealed that Casio had sent him a batch of watches and will sponsor the seven-a-side league, Kings League, which the former footballer and Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos set up.
The first song Shakira put out following her confirmed breakup leaned towards melancholy rather than melodrama. In the October release of “Monotonia”, Shakira admits: “It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t my fault. It was monotony’s fault.”
Three months on and the tone has emphatically changed. In the viral track – which received a record-breaking 63 million views in 24 hours – Shakira stresses: “Sorry baby, I should have thrown you out a while ago. A she-wolf like me is not for rookies”…“I was out of your league, which is why you’re with someone just like you”.
Shakira has always underlined the importance of family and doesn’t neglect her former partner’s parents in the track. “You left me with my mother-in-law as a neighbour, with the press at my door and a debt to the taxman,” she sings.
Spanish revenue authorities claim that Shakira has failed to pay €14.5m – although the singer denies these allegations which centre around where she was living at the time.
When she first opened up about her split with Pique – in an interview with ELLE rather than a music video staged in what looked like the DJ’s neon-lit bedroom – Shakira highlighted the sacrifices she had made in moving to Barcelona so that Pique could continue playing for his boyhood club.
Pique and Shakira first met when the South American artist filmed the music video for the official song of the 2010 World Cup, Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), a tournament Pique went on to win with Spain. A decade on, Shakira’s latest release underlines everything the pair have lost – any respect for each other chief among this list.
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