Shakira secured a major legal win in her years-long tax fraud case, saying that the Spanish court had “finally set the record straight” amid her financial battle.
The Associated Press reported on Monday, May 18, that the 49-year-old singer was acquitted by a Spanish court. Court documents obtained by the outlet stated that the Spanish government must return more than $64 million in wrongly imposed fines.
Monday’s decision brings an end to Shakira’s lengthy legal battle over taxes in Spain. In a statement to the BBC, Shakira said that she had been “enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being” for years.
“There was never any fraud, and the Administration itself could never prove otherwise, simply because it wasn’t true,” she continued. “Yet, for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty.”
She added, “Every step of the process was leaked, distorted and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers. Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”
The dispute was related to the 2011 tax year, in which Spanish authorities claimed Shakira was a resident of the country. To be considered a resident of Spain, Shakira would have had to spend 183 days living there. The court argued that her residency in Spain was connected to Shakira’s former relationship with Gerard Piqué, whom she was with from 2010 to 2022.
The court could only prove that she lived in Spain for 163 days, which led to the decision that she be paid back her taxes plus interest.
“This resolution comes after an eight-year ordeal that has taken an unacceptable toll, reflecting a lack of rigor in administrative practices,” Shakira’s attorney, José Luís Prada, said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
In a separate tax fraud case, Shakira was accused of defrauding the Spanish government of $15 million in taxes from 2012 to 2014. She denied all of the allegations against her.
In July 2023, news broke that Shakira had settled with the Spanish government before they went to trial. The following year, she reflected on the lawsuit in an essay published via El Mundo.
“I did it to protect my children and to get on with my life, not out of cowardice or guilt,” Shakira wrote in September 2024 of settling the suit. “Traveling to Spain created many complications for me because it forced me to be away from my work centers. Whenever I returned, I did so to make the relationship prosper, not because of a ‘vocation to stay.’”
Shakira explained that, at the time, she wanted her relationship with Piqué to “prosper,” so she spent time in Spain.
“I always fulfilled my obligations. My finances were investigated by institutions as little suspicious as the White House or the IRS and approved by other countries of the European Union,” she wrote. “In all that time, they never found even the slightest sign of illegality, while a general director of inspection of the Spanish Tax Agency allowed himself to criminalize me in a television program even before the trial was held.”
Shakira added, “They wanted to make the public believe that I did not pay my taxes when the truth is that I paid much more than I should have.”
