Shakira has shared her thoughts on Barbie, revealing that her two sons “hated it” because “they felt that it was emasculating”.
The artist was asked in an interview with Allure if she had seen the Greta Gerwig-directed film, which came out last summer, to which she said that she had.
“My sons absolutely hated it. They felt that it was emasculating,” she said. “And I agree, to a certain extent. I’m raising two boys. I want ’em to feel powerful too [while] respecting women.
“I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide. I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well. We complement each other, and that complement should not be lost.”
Shakira released her new album, ‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran’, last month. In a four-star review, NME wrote: “With a career that spans four decades, she continues to push the envelope for Latin pop music and make the genre a global event. All her previous records had at least one song in English, but this time, she opts to sing fully in Spanish. With this vulnerable yet versatile collection, Shakira shows there are no limits to the art of her catharsis through song.”
The Colombian singer celebrated the release of her 12th album by playing a free pop-up show in front of a huge crowd of around 40,000 fans in New York’s Times Square last week.
In December, an enormous statue of the singer was unveiled in her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia. It measures 6.5 metres tall and depicts the popstar swivelling her hips in the move from the video for ‘Hips Don’t Lie’.
Shakira was also crowned 2023’s most searched musician according to Google’s 2023 Year In Search, after releasing her collaboration with producer Bizarrap, ‘BZRP Music Sessions #53’, in January.