They were one of the most well-known couples in the world together, but more than ten years later, Colombian diva Shakira and FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique have broken up. They made the announcement on Saturday.
One of the biggest names in the world’s music industry, the 45-year-old “Hips don’t Lie” singer has sold more than 60 million albums.
Spanish football legend Pique, 35, is a three-time Champions League champion with Barcelona and won the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championship.
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A few weeks prior to the closing ceremony, they had spoken via SMS and had first met when filming the anthem’s accompanying video.
As soon as they had official status, the paparazzi flocked to them.
The couple had been living together on the outskirts of Barcelona for years and had two sons together.
“We are sorry to announce that we are divorcing. We ask for respect for (our) privacy because it is our top responsibility to ensure the safety of our children “In a statement, the couple was quoted.
Shakira, a three-time Grammy winner, is one of the biggest stars from Latin America with her blend of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence. She has achieved major international success with songs like “Hips don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever.”
She shared the stage with Jennifer Lopez in 2020 at one of the most viewed half-hours on US television, the NFL’s Super Bowl championship game in Miami.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
Pique’s fame increased when Shakira was by his side, and the couple’s influence spread beyond music and sports.
Pique also succeeded as an entrepreneur.
They hosted a meal with the Japanese online retailer Rakuten in 2015, which resulted in one of Barcelona’s largest sponsorship deals.
Pique had interests in other sports besides football. In 2018, his investment company Kosmos purchased the Davis Cup in a $3 billion, 25-year contract.
Pique used the off-season to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University.
Just over a week after Shakira’s appeal was denied by a Barcelona court, Spanish court documents brought the singer one step closer to being tried for tax fraud in Spain.
The Spanish tax office was allegedly defrauded of €14.5 million by her between 2012 and 2014, according to Spanish authorities.
When her relationship with Pique became known, she allegedly moved to Spain in 2011, but she allegedly kept her formal tax residency in the Bahamas up until 2015.
Her defense attorneys claim that she only relocated to Spain permanently in 2015 and that she has always had “impeccable behaviour on tax matters in all the nations she had to pay taxes in.”
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Pique, who has his own legal troubles, had a lower court decision requiring him to pay the tax agency €2.1 million in overdue taxes and fines overturned by Spain’s Supreme Court in December.
The “Pandora Papers,” a massive leak of financial records in October 2021 that included names of prominent people with offshore assets, included Shakira.
Shakira described momentarily losing her voice two years prior as “the saddest point of her life” and how it had affected her “deeply” in an interview with AFP in 2019.
She later regained her voice organically, defying physicians’ recommendations to have surgery, and in 2018 went on tour across the world.
SOURCE: Sportsbrief.com
