Shakira Said She's "Proud to Be Latin American" After Ex Gerard Piqué Was Accused of Making Xenophobic Comments About Her Fans

What's this man playing at?

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Gerard Pique of FC Barcelona and Shakira pose with the trophy after FC Barcelona won the Copa del Rey Final match against Athletic Club at Camp Nou on May 30, 2015 in Barcelona, Spain
(Image credit: Photo by David Ramos / Getty)

Shakira and Gerard Piqué's indirect exchanges continue to be heated, months after they announced their separation.

The ex-soccer player recently said in a Spanish-language interview, "I am very disappointed with what society is. So my ex is Latin American … you don’t know what I’ve gotten on social media from her fans. These people have no lives" (as translated by Us Weekly).

After the clip was shared on Twitter, commenters doubled down on criticizing Piqué—with some people calling him out for xenophobia. For context, the former professional athlete is Spanish, while Shakira is Colombian. They share two kids.

Soon after Piqué's words went viral, Shakira tweeted, "Orgullosa de ser Latinoamericana" with flag emojis for all the countries in South and Central America. In case you didn't quite catch her meaning there, this translates as, "Proud to be Latin American."

The superstar singer's faithful fans rallied behind her message in the comments.

While there are always two sides to every breakup, Piqué has seemingly been doing everything in his power to make sure nobody takes his side.

The two split after Piqué was accused of cheating, with Shakira calling that time "the darkest hours of my life."

Soon after, Piqué said in an interview with Spanish paper El País, "I keep doing what I want. The day I die, I will look back and hope I have always done what I wanted. I want to be faithful to myself. I'm not going to spend money cleaning up my image."

He added, "I'm very happy. There have been changes in my life and I have known how to preserve happiness."

As you can imagine, everyone was thrilled for him after hearing that.

Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn
Morning Editor

Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.