“There is a place in hell reserved for women who don’t support other women,” Shakira, 46, told Enrique Acevedo of Canal Estrellas Monday, according to CNN, repeating a quote made famous by Madeleine Albright. “And I completely agree.” Though Shakira, 46, apparently didn’t name her, she appears to be referring to her ex-boyfriend, Gerard Pique, and his new 23-year-old girlfriend, Clara Chia Marti. Shakira and Gerard, 36, announced their split in June 2022, and since then, Shakira has “realized that women are at a key moment for society. We are at a point where the support that we can receive from each other is very relevant, it is very important.”
“I’ve always been emotionally quite dependent on men I’ve fallen in love with love,” she added, “and I think I’ve been able to understand that story from another perspective, and today I am sufficient on my own.” She said her new power “comes out of experiencing a painful loss, of accepting it, of tolerating a frustration, of understanding that life doesn’t always bring us what we want.”
“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,” said Shakira, who added that she’s now focusing on being a “lioness” for her and Gerard’s two sons, Milan, 10, and 8-year-old Sasha.
In the follow-up of the breakup, which ended Shakira and Gerard’s 11-year relationship, she released a track called “BZRP Music Session #53,” which included the lyrics, “You left me with my mother-in-law as a neighbor/ With the press at my door, and in debt with the government/ You thought you hurt me, but you made me stronger.”
“I think I would be in a very different place if I had not made that song, [to have] the chance to express myself, to think about pain,” she Canal Estrellas, per CNN. “I think someone had to take a photo of the day I worked on Session 53 with Bizarrap, a before and after. I entered the studio in one way and left in another. This is one of the things that I am most grateful to Biza, for giving me that space, that opportunity to vent. It was a great relief, also necessary for my own healing, for my own recovery process,”
Working with Bizarrap was “a suggestion from Milan,” Shakira explained. “Milan told me: ‘Mommy, you have to do something with Bizarrap … he’s the Argentine god!”