The Colombian pop star Shakira and her longtime partner, the Spanish football player Gerard Piqué, announced they were separating.
“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our highest priority, we request respect for (our) privacy. Thank you for your understanding,” the couple said in a joint statement of only 26 words on Saturday.
According to reports from several media, Piqué would have cheated on Shakira with a 20-year-old girl. Nonetheless, an official version is still unknown.
The couple met 12 years ago when the football player was featured in the music video for Shakira’s song “Waka Waka,” the official song of the 2010 World Cup.
It took a few months for the couple to make their relationship public. Shakira made it official on her Twitter account in March 2011, with the phrase: “I present to you my sun”.
Quickly, Shakira moved to Barcelona with him, and two years after starting their relationship, in September 2012, they announced her first pregnancy. Her first child, a boy named Milan, was born in January 2013.
The singer confirmed her second pregnancy a year and a half later, in August 2014, and on January 29, 2015, Sasha, her second child, was also born in Barcelona.
Shakira and Piqué are ten years apart, and he has publicly said that the difference in age made them feel that they were “supposed to meet.” The two never got married and in previous interviews, they said that they were not a conventional couple.
