TOGETHER, they were one of the most famous couples in the world, but more than a decade later, Colombian superstar Shakira and FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique have called time on their relationship, they announced on Saturday.

The 45-year-old songstress is one of the biggest names in the music industry and has sold more than 60 million albums.

The 35-year-old Spanish football hero won the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship, and is a three-time Champions League winner with Barcelona.

Shakira sang her infectious hit Waka Waka, the official song of the 2010 World Cup, at the closing ceremony of the event in South Africa.

They met during the filming of the video and exchanged messages a few weeks before the closing ceremony.

Once official, they soon became a darling of the paparazzi.

The couple share two sons and had been living together for years on the outskirts of Barcelona.

“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our upmost priority, we request respect for (our) privacy,” said the couple in a statement.

With her mix of Arabic and Latin rhythms and rock influence, three-time Grammy winner Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin America, scoring major global hits with songs such as Hips Don’t Lie and Whenever, Wherever.

She performed with Jennifer Lopez at the half-time show of the NFL’s Super Bowl championship final in Miami in 2020, one of the most-watched half-hours in US television.

Legal proceedings

With Shakira by his side, Pique’s celebrity status reached new heights, and the couple expanded their influence beyond music and sport.

Pique also became a successful entrepreneur.

They organised a dinner with Japanese online retailer Rakuten in 2015, leading to one of Barcelona’s biggest sponsorship agreements.

Pique’s sports interests are not limited to football. His investment fund Kosmos acquired the Davis Cup in a 25-year deal worth US$3 billion (RM13 billion) in 2018.

Pique also took advantage of an off-season to study for a master’s at Harvard University.

The couple announced their separation just a week after Spanish court documents inched Shakira closer to standing trial in Spain for tax fraud, after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer.

Spanish prosecutors accuse her of defrauding the tax office out of 14.5 million euros (RM68.3 million) on income earned between 2012 and 2014.

They say she moved to Spain in 2011, when her relationship with Pique became public, but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.

Her defence lawyers said she moved to Spain full-time only in 2015 and insisted that her “conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable in all the countries she had to pay taxes”.

‘Darkest moment’

Pique, facing his own legal issues, saw Spain’s Supreme Court annul a lower court ruling ordering him to pay the tax office 2.1 million euros in back taxes and fines in December.

Shakira was also named in one of the largest ever leaks of financial documents in October 2021, known as the Pandora Papers, among public figures linked to offshore assets.

In an interview with AFP in 2019, the singer said temporarily losing her voice two years earlier was “the darkest moment of her life” and affected her “deeply”.

She later naturally recovered her voice, without needing to undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and subsequently carried out a world tour in 2018. – AFP, June 6, 2022.