Shakira got candid on the reason she settled her $15M tax case with the Spanish government in her November 2023 tax fraud trial in Barcelona, doing it only to “protect” her kids.
“I want to leave my children the legacy of a woman who explained her reasons calmly and in her own time, when she considered it necessary, not when she was forced to,” the Waka Waka hitmaker wrote in a strong statement in a letter published in the Spanish newspaper, el Mundo, on Thursday.
“I need them to know that I made the decisions I made to protect them, to be by their side and to get on with my life. Not out of cowardice or guilt.”
Shakira stated in her letter to el Mundo, that the “state institution seemed more interested in publicly burning [her] at the stake than in listening to [her] reasons.”
She also accused that the government of Spain fabricated the case to look like the singer defrauded millions after she moved to the country.
“In 2011, I wanted my relationship with Gerard Piqué to prosper, who at that time was tied to Spain for work reasons,” she recalled.
Shakira and Piqué dated between 2011 and 2022 and share two sons: Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9.
She continued, “Travelling to Spain created many complications for me because it forced me to be away from my work centres. Whenever I returned, I did so to make the relationship prosper, not because of a ‘vocation to stay.'”