Colombian singer Shakira (Barranquilla, 49 years old) experienced one of the most difficult episodes of her life when, in 2022, she separated from Gerard Piqué after almost 12 years of relationship and two children together. According to the Colombian artist’s account, she found out that the Barça footballer had been unfaithful to her at the same time her father was hospitalized and in critical condition. A dark period to which her tax problems were added and which led her to leave Barcelona to move to Miami, but which also marked the beginning of a new musical era and with which she wanted to leave a message of resilience: Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. An album with which many women identified and with which she has been on a world tour for just over a year, since it began on February 11, 2025, in Rio de Janeiro. This Saturday, May 2, the singer returns to the Brazilian city to perform a massive concert on the iconic Copacabana beach and, on the occasion of this event, has published Llorar ya no es suficiente, a letter in the media outlet O Globo, where she reflects on her long journey. “It was just one morning when I woke up a different woman, with a different life. The next day, I had to get up, make breakfast, take the children to school, answer the phone, and continue with my career. Life gives no respite to women when they suddenly find themselves alone, with everything on their shoulders,” she writes about her separation.
“I had to completely reinvent myself, as a mother, provider, artist, woman. From this learning, the tour Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran was born. It is not a cry for revenge nor a declaration of victimization. It is exactly the opposite: the realization that crying is no longer enough. There are children to support, bills to pay, a life to build. And that it is possible to do all this with dignity,” she continues. In 2023, after her breakup, she faced a legal battle with the Spanish Treasury: she admitted to a fraud of 14.5 million euros and avoided prison by paying a fine of more than seven million.
“During the world tour, I began to see my own face reflected in many others. Women waited for me after the concerts to tell me, with teary eyes, their stories,” she says in the letter published in the Brazilian media on April 26. “They were alone, but not defeated. That’s when I understood that my personal experience was, in reality, the biography of an entire generation of Latina women,” she recounts. And she adds: “Latina women have changed. For decades they were portrayed as devoted to the home, silent, submissive. This image is outdated. Today’s Latina woman has decided to move forward. She maintains the house, makes decisions, leads projects, and raises her children alone if necessary.”
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The concert she will offer this Saturday in Rio de Janeiro will be free, outdoors, and up to two million people are expected to attend. “I want to dedicate May 2 to these women. For that, there is no better place in the world than Copacabana,” the artist continues in the letter. And she states that upon arriving in Brazil, she discovered that “more than 40 million households are headed by women who support their families with all their strength. These women contribute greatly to the country’s economy, without asking permission or seeking the spotlight. When I saw this number, I was speechless for a long time. I thought: wow, I am one of them. I hope this show can be, if only for one night, the mirror in which these women recognize themselves, because they are the ones who carry today, in their bodies and in their daily lives, the purest DNA of the contemporary Latina woman.”
This week, the stage has been built on Copacabana beach, where the death of a worker has been reported. The victim, a 28-year-old security technician, died from the impact of “a stage assembly structure that collapsed,” according to a statement from the Rio Military Police. Shakira released a statement this Tuesday lamenting the death: “I am deeply saddened for the family, friends, and colleagues of Gabriel de Jesús Firmino, a worker who lost his life yesterday at the site. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones.”
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In 2024, the singer finally released the album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, Shakira’s first album in seven years, which includes hits like Monotonía, where she already hinted at what her relationship with Piqué was like. But that was just the beginning of her catharsis: in the song Shakira: Bzrp, Music Sessions, Vol. 53 she explicitly pointed out the former footballer’s disdain: “You left me with the mother-in-law as a neighbor / with the press at the door and the debt to the Treasury.” Additionally, she mentions Clara Chía, her ex’s new partner. In El Jefe, the performer mentions Piqué, her ex-father-in-law, and Lili Melgar, her children’s nanny, to whom she dedicates the song: “This song is for you, who weren’t paid your severance.” And in TQG alongside Karol G, the Colombians took the opportunity to throw darts at their ex-partners. Leaving aside the indirect references to Piqué, Shakira used Acróstico to dedicate it to her driving force throughout this episode: her children, Milan (13 years old) and Sasha (11 years old), whom she has brought on stage to sing at several dates of her tour.
The singer, whose career took off in 1995 with the album Pies Descalzos and who today has over 80 million monthly listeners on Spotify, will then continue her world tour. And she will pass through several cities in the United States before starting her residency in Madrid, where she will transform the Iberdrola Music venue into the Shakira Stadium to offer 11 shows starting on September 18.
