Shakira wasn’t going to let a “very rough year” get in her way on the road to her latest record-breaking song.
The music star, 46, caught up with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, where they discussed her single “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” and how she linked up with collaborator Bizarrap for the project.
“The thing with this song is it has become an anthem for so many women out there. I’ve had a very rough year after my separation, and writing this song has been so important to me,” she said, nodding to her June 2022 split from longtime boyfriend Gerard Piqué.
“It’s been a healthy way to channel my emotions.”
The song helped Shakira break 14 Guinness World Records and the lyrics seemingly allude to the split, its aftermath and Piqué’s, 36, current girlfriend, Clara Chia Marti. In it, she sings “You go around saying you’re a champion / And when I needed you / You gave your worst version.”
“After we put out this song, I really felt like I don’t even have fans out there,” Shakira said on Fallon. “I have a sisterhood of women who have been through the same things that I have been through, who think the way I think, who feel the way I feel, who had to put up with so much crap the way I had to.”
“And you know, I did write the song for me,” she said. “But also, I feel that it was meant to be — and probably for so many women out there that needed a forum, too, and a voice to represent them in so many ways.”
Shakira added during the discussion that it was her and Piqué’s son Milan, 10, who encouraged her to work with Bizarrap.
“He told me, ‘Mom, you’ve got to collaborate with Bizarrap. You have to get on a song with Bizarrap, because you guys are gonna be No. 1,'” Shakira told Fallon. “And he sent a voice note to my manager, Jaime. He said, ‘You got to put my mom together with Bizarrap on a song because they’re going to be No. 1.’ And he was right.”