Shakira and Gerard Piqué Announced Their Split in Two Sentences — Then She Released the Song

The case in brief

On 4 June 2022 Shakira and Gerard Piqué released an identical statement through their representatives confirming that they had separated, asking for privacy, and saying nothing else. They had been together for around eleven years and had two children. The statement is three lines long and remains, four years later, the only joint account either of them has given.

Everything the public knows beyond it comes from three sources: a custody agreement approved by a Barcelona court, statements each of them made separately, and — unusually for a break-up of this size — a run of songs released under Shakira's own name with credited co-writers and publishing registrations. Those songs are not gossip. They are published, attributable, first-person work, and this article treats them as such while being precise about what they do and do not establish.

The dated record

1. 2010

   Shakira records Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), the official song of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Piqué appears in the video; he is part of the Spain squad that wins the tournament.

2. March 2011

   Shakira confirms publicly that the two are in a relationship.

3. 22 January 2013

   Their first son, Milan, is born in Barcelona.

4. 29 January 2015

   Their second son, Sasha, is born in Barcelona.

5. 4 June 2022

   A joint statement confirms the separation. Neither party gives a reason.

6. 5 November 2022

   Piqué plays his final competitive match for FC Barcelona, having announced his retirement from football days earlier.

7. 1 December 2022

   A custody agreement is signed before a Barcelona court, allowing the children to relocate with their mother while setting out the father's contact.

8. 11 January 2023

   Shakira releases BZRP Music Sessions #53 with the Argentine producer Bizarrap. It sets first-day streaming records for a Latin track and is widely read as addressing the separation.

9. April 2023

   Shakira confirms she has moved with her children from Barcelona to Miami.

10. 20 November 2023

    Shakira reaches an agreement with Spanish prosecutors in a long-running tax case on the first day of trial in Barcelona, accepting a settlement and ending the proceedings. The case concerned tax residency in 2012–2014 and is separate from the separation.

11. 16 November 2023

    BZRP Music Sessions #53 wins Song of the Year and Best Pop Song at the Latin Grammy Awards.

12. 22 March 2024

    The album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran is released. It later wins Best Latin Pop Album at the Grammy Awards.

On the record

• CONFIRMED: the separation was announced by both parties in a joint statement on 4 June 2022.
• PUBLIC RECORD: a custody agreement was signed before a Barcelona court on 1 December 2022, permitting the children's relocation.
• PUBLIC RECORD: Piqué's retirement from professional football in November 2022 was announced by him and confirmed by FC Barcelona.
• PUBLIC RECORD: the November 2023 Spanish tax settlement is a court matter with published outcomes. It is not part of the separation and should not be reported as if it were.
• CONFIRMED: the songs released from January 2023 onwards are credited to Shakira as co-writer and were promoted by her. Their commercial performance and awards are matters of record.

Statements on the record

“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our highest priority, we ask for privacy.”

Continue reading · What happened next?They Broke Up, Married Other People, Reunited, Married — Then It Fell Apart AgainJennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck called off a wedding in 2003, spent seventeen years apart, married in Las Vegas in 2022 — and the divorce petition arrived on their anniversary, to the day.

Shakira has since spoken in interviews about the period as the hardest of her life and about writing as the way she processed it. Piqué has spoken publicly far less about the separation itself, and has at times said he does not intend to explain his private life in public. Neither has ever jointly confirmed a cause.

Unresolved

The reason for the separation is UNCONFIRMED and Forgotten Frame does not publish it. Widely repeated tabloid accounts of infidelity have never been confirmed by either party, are not established by any court document in the public domain, and are excluded here as a matter of policy — including the lyric-based readings that treat a song as a sworn statement.

A song is evidence of what its author chose to release. It is not evidence of what a third party did. That distinction is doing a great deal of work in this story, and most of the coverage published since January 2023 has ignored it.

How it ended

Shakira relocated to Miami with her sons in 2023 and returned to touring with the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour, her first stadium run in seven years. The album took Best Latin Pop Album at the Grammy Awards and the Bizarrap session took Song of the Year at the Latin Grammys — an unusual outcome for a track released outside the traditional album cycle.

Piqué retired from football at 35 and has since concentrated on Kosmos and on the Kings League, the seven-a-side competition he founded, which has expanded internationally. Both have continued to co-parent between Miami and Barcelona under the 2022 agreement. Neither has expanded on the three lines from June 2022, and there is no indication that either intends to.