Gerard Piqué Breaks His Silence on Shakira Split: ‘I Want to Be Faithful to Myself’

Gerard Piqué spoke out publicly for the first time about his high-profile breakup with Shakira after more than a decade together.

“I won’t say, I don’t want to,” the soccer star said when pressed in a profile by Spanish media outlet El Pais about how the split had affected him. Instead, he chose to speak about the former couple’s two sons, 9-year-old Milan and 7-year-old Sasha.

“Everyone has their responsibility to do what’s best for their kids,” he continued. “It’s about protecting them. That’s the job of all parents with their kids. That’s what I’m focused on and that’s my role as a father.”

Piqué also clapped back at media coverage surrounding the split and his new relationship with Barcelona college student Clara Chia, saying, “The problem is how people perceive things or how the press packages it. I’m still doing what I want. I want to be faithful to myself. I’m not gonna waste money on cleaning up my image.

“The people that I love and worry about are the people that know me. The rest, I don’t care,” he maintained. “I’m putting my energy on the people that are closest to me and giving them what I have. I’m very happy. There’s been changes in my life and I’ve known how to preserve that happiness.”

Meanwhile, Shakira has been outspoken on her side of the breakup, taking hard-hitting aim at Piqué on her Bizarrap collab “BZRP Music Sessions #53,” which rocketed to No. 1 on the Hot Latin Songs chart and ultimately broke 14 Guinness World Records.