‘No One Should Tell Me How to Lick My Wounds’

In a new cover story for Rolling Stone, the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer reflected on her traumatic split from Gerard Piqué in 2022, and why she has no regrets about dissing the former Spanish soccer star on her 2023 hit, “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.”

The catchy, techno-led track — also known as “Out of Your League” or “Pa’ Tipos Como Tú” (‘for guys like you’)” — sees Shakira, 47, blast Piqué, 37, for his alleged affair.

In it, she jokes that he should work on his brain instead of spending time at the gym, and tells him he’s trading “a Rolex for a Casio,” by leaving her for the much-younger Clara Chia Marti.

Shakira even plays around with Piqué’s name throughout the song and the name of his 25-year-old girlfriend.

While the diss track shocked a lot of Shak’s fans, the Colombian-born songstress told Rolling Stone she has absolutely no qualms about putting it out — in fact she felt relieved after she did.

“You don’t know the maximum relief I felt. It was like … Relief,” Shakira, who shares Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9, with Piqué, said. “And then I remember my manager at the time telling me, ‘Please change the lyrics.’ Of course, I was trying to calculate the possible contingencies and the risks, but I said, ‘I’m an artist. I am a woman. And I’m a wounded she-wolf. And no one should tell me how to lick my wounds.'”

She was a little surprised, however, by how big the song got — but found the moment motivating as she embarked on a journey of healing.

“I started to see that my fans were there for me,” she noted. “We’re in a society that’s used to seeing women confront pain in a submissive way, and I think that’s changed.”

“Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” went on to win Song of the Year and Best Pop Song at the Latin Grammys in 2023, and helped lead her 2024 album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, her first in seven years.

Now, almost two years on from their split, Shakira said she’s finally starting to feel like herself again after spending over a decade with Piqué, telling the outlet that she sacrificed her career by living and working in Spain where he is from.

The “Whenever, Wherever” singer says that the pair had planned to move to the United States and raise their children after Piqué retired, but the split put the plan in motion ahead of schedule and has allowed her to embrace the change.

“This happens, I’ve noticed. When you leave a relationship of many years, there are things about yourself that seem to have been lost along the way,” Shakira said. “There’s things about yourself that you change for the other person or give up. When that relationship breaks down, you feel like you’re left with nothing and you have to heal, search for yourself, and travel back toward the center of yourself.”

She continued, “This has been a journey back to myself, and the way there was through my music. I’m in a moment where the worst has happened, and this process woke up a new sense of autonomy and independence in me.”

While Shakira has ben linked to NBA star Jimmy Butler, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and Emily In Paris actor Lucien Laviscount since her split from Piqué, she tells Rolling Stone she’s not focused on dating seriously at the moment.

“What can I tell you, I like men,” she added of her outing. “That’s the problem. I shouldn’t like them with everything that’s happened to me, but imagine how much I like men that I still like them. But having a formal relationship, I think my kids would have to be very prepared for that, and their emotional and psychological well-being is the priority.”

“I think they’ve seen their mother cry. I think they’ve seen her celebrate. I think they’ve seen her laugh. I think they’ve seen her work tirelessly. And that’s it: I want to show them that life isn’t linear,” Shakira continued, touching again on life as a working mom following her split from Piqué. “It’s not how people picture it in the movies. Things don’t turn out the way we want them to and you have to deal with disappointment. That’s part of the human condition. It’s why we’re here.”