Shakira accuses Spanish Tax Agency of ‘underlying sexist prejudices’ and trying to ‘publicly burn me at the stake’

Colombian singer Shakira has published an extensive and scathing letter in which she offers her version of events regarding the legal battle she and the Spanish Tax Agency have been engaged in in recent years. The artist accuses the agency of manipulating her tax residency, of having acted with “underlying sexist prejudices,” and of having tried to “publicly burn me at the stake,” by being more interested in the media spectacle than in listening to her reasoning, as she states in the missive published Wednesday by Spanish daily El Mundo.

In 2023, Shakira surprised observers by admitting to a tax offense related to her residence in Spain between 2012 and 2014, which led her to pay a fine of more than €7 million ($7.75 million). However, in her letter, the singer insists that she assumed this responsibility “not out of cowardice or guilt,” but to protect her children and spare them the suffering of a prolonged judicial process under the glare of the media. The singer’s lawyers stated at trial that their client had been a tax resident in the Bahamas — which lost its tax haven status this year — since 2004, something that the prosecution refuted, saying she had been established in Spain as of 2011.

Shakira begins her story by recalling how in 2023 she was living under intense media pressure, with cameras following her every step, eager to capture any sign of weakness or personal collapse. She explains that the media trial surrounding her divorce from then-Barcelona footballer Gerard Piqué and the tax accusations was too tempting a spectacle for the press and for some state institutions, which seemed more interested in exposing her publicly than in guaranteeing a fair process. In this sense, the singer claims that the Tax Agency intentionally confused and manipulated the facts, creating a narrative that presented her as a citizen trying to evade her tax responsibilities.

One of the central points of the letter is Shakira’s criticism of the Tax Agency’s approach, which she says intentionally mixed her desire to maintain a relationship with Piqué, who lived in Spain for work reasons, with a supposed “vocation to stay” in the country. According to the singer, her visits to Spain in those years did not imply an intention to establish herself permanently, but were motivated by her romantic relationship, and she stresses that this generated “many complications” in her professional career. “From the beginning I knew that the fabricated story of the Tax Agency confused and manipulated two completely different intentions: One was the desire to settle in a country, and the other, very different, was the desire for a relationship to flourish in that country. They conflated the two to turn me into a tax resident since 2011, and create obligations that didn’t exist,” she explains.

In 2018, the agency accused the singer of tax evasion, considering that between 2012 and 2014 she had resided in Spain and as such she should have paid taxes in the country on most of her income generated around the world. The Treasury alleged that during those four years she should have paid personal income tax, which resulted in the accusation of fraud for an amount of €14.5 million ($16.07 million). Shakira accepted a fine of €7.3 million ($8.09 million) and thus avoided prison.

The singer also denounces what she considers to be unequal and excessive treatment by the Tax Agency, which she says has insisted on presenting “hunting trophies” to regain its credibility. She recounts how, despite having fulfilled her tax obligations in other countries, her finances were thoroughly examined by the Spanish Tax Agency, despite being “approved by other European Union countries, and in all that time, they never found even the slightest sign of illegality” Despite this, she recalls, a senior official at the Tax Agency publicly criminalized her before the trial even began, an act that Shakira considers a clear violation of her right to the presumption of innocence.

In her opinion, if instead of her it had been an American man who had travelled to Spain for reasons similar to hers, the authorities would not have assumed that he was seeking to settle in the country. For Shakira, this approach reveals that a “sexism persists in sectors of state bureaucracy in a society that — fortunately — thinks very differently today.”

Shakira not only defends herself in her letter, but also reflects on the personal and financial impact that this process has had on her life. She claims that her “Spanish decade,” which coincided with her relationship with Piqué, was a “financially lost decade.” Despite having given 120 concerts in 90 cities around the world, she claims that all the income generated during that period was absorbed by the Spanish state. The artist considers that the agreement she signed in 2023 was a difficult decision, but necessary to protect her children and allow them to continue with their lives without the constant weight of accusations on their shoulders. For Shakira, this agreement did not imply an acceptance of guilt, but a measure to safeguard the well-being of her family.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition