Age, Biography & Wiki
Shakira, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, was born on February 2, 1977, in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is currently 48 years old. Recognized for her distinctive voice, energetic performances, and signature belly dancing, Shakira has sold over 125 million albums and singles worldwide, making her the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time and the second-most successful Latina singer behind Gloria Estefan. Her official biography is detailed on her Wikipedia page.
| Occupation | Voice Actress |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 2 February 1977 |
| Age | 48 Years |
| Birth Place | Barranquilla, Atlántico, Colombia |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | Colombia |
Height, Weight & Measurements
- Height: 5 ft 2 in (157 cm)
- Weight: Approximately 119 lbs (54 kg)
- Measurements: Estimated at 34-24-35 inches (86-61-89 cm)
(Note: Exact, up-to-date measurements may vary by source and are subject to change.)
| Height | 157 cm |
| Weight | 119 lbs |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Shakira was previously in a long-term relationship with former Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué, with whom she shares two children. The couple split in 2022 amid highly publicized reports. As of 2025, Shakira remains single and is widely covered in the media for both her personal and professional life.
Her name means "thankful" in Arabic. She is the only child of William Mebarak Chadid and Nidia Ripoll Torrado. Her grandparents are of Spanish and Lebanese descent. Shakira's great-grandmother on her father's side emigrated to Sincelejo, Colombia from Lebanon. When he was around five, his family moved back to Colombia. Multiple sources:
The Spanish surname Torrado of her grandmother on her mother's side is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century. Shakira has stated that she also has distant Italian roots through an ancestor with the surname Pisciotti. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia.
The Spanish surname Torrado of her grandmother on her mother's side is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century. Shakira has stated that she also has distant Italian roots through an ancestor with the surname Pisciotti. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia.
The Spanish surname Torrado of her grandmother on her mother's side is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century. Shakira has stated that she also has distant Italian roots through an ancestor with the surname Pisciotti. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia.
The Spanish surname Torrado of her grandmother on her mother's side is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century. Shakira has stated that she also has distant Italian roots through an ancestor with the surname Pisciotti. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia.
The Spanish surname Torrado of her grandmother on her mother's side is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century. Shakira has stated that she also has distant Italian roots through an ancestor with the surname Pisciotti. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia.
Shakira wrote her first poem, titled "La Rosa de Cristal" ('The Crystal Rose'), when she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching her father writing stories on a typewriter and prayed for one for herself when she was seven. She kept writing poems and her mother thought she would become an author. When Shakira was two years old, her older half-brother was killed, at the age of nineteen, in a motorcycle accident. Six years later, writing lyrics on her typewriter and having been given a guitar by her aunt, she composed her first song, titled "Tus Gafas Oscuras" ('Your Dark Glasses'), inspired by her father, who for years wore dark glasses to hide his grief.
Shakira's father took her to a local Middle Eastern restaurant, where she first heard the doumbek, a traditional drum of Middle-Eastern music, used to accompany belly dancing. She naturally started to dance and soon wanted to do it for anyone who would watch. At her Catholic school, she demonstrated belly dancing on stage every Friday. "That's how I discovered my passion for live performance", she said. In second grade, she was rejected for school choir because, according to her music teacher, her vibrato was too strong. Her classmates told her she sounded like a goat. She was often sent out of class because of her hyperactivity. To make Shakira appreciate more the modest conditions of her upbringing, her father took her to a local park so she could see orphans who lived there. The images stayed with her and she said to herself, "one day I'm going to help these kids when I become a famous artist". Having regained some confidence in her singing, she entered a local TV station talent contest when she was ten. She took the top trophy and won a bicycle.
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Net Worth and Salary
- Net Worth (2025): $300 million
- Annual Income Estimate: $15 million per year
- Salary Breakdown:
- Monthly: ~$1.25 million
- Weekly: ~$288,461
- Daily: ~$57,692
Shakira’s fortune is the result of her music career, world tours, songwriting royalties, endorsements, and business ventures. Notably, she sold the rights to her publishing catalog in 2021, likely for at least $100 million.
Business Ventures
- Endorsements: Longtime deals with Pepsi, Crest White Strips, and Oral-B (latter partly for charity).
- Perfume Line: Owns a successful fragrance collection.
- Music Deals: Signed a $30 million three-album deal with Live Nation and Sony in 2012; previously signed a $300 million, 10-year deal with Live Nation in 2008.
- Publishing Sale: In 2021, sold her song catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Fund for an undisclosed amount, likely exceeding $100 million.
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Shakira attended various events around Barranquilla and gained some recognition singing in the area. She met local theater producer Monica Ariza, who was impressed with her and tried to help her career. During a flight from Barranquilla to Bogotá, Ariza convinced Sony Music Colombia executive Ciro Vargas to hold an audition for Shakira in a hotel lobby. Vargas held Shakira in high regard and, having returned to the Sony Music Colombia office, gave the cassette to a song and artist director. However, the director was not enthusiastic and thought Shakira was something of "a lost cause". Undaunted and still convinced that Shakira had talent, Vargas set up an audition in Bogotá. He arranged for Sony Music executives to be present, with the idea of surprising them with Shakira's performance. She performed three songs and impressed the executives enough to be signed for the recording of three albums.
On starting her career so early, she later said: "I wouldn't have done anything different myself [...] though I think I missed out on adolescence. I never misbehaved when I was a teenager and that's something you've got to do. I was so focused on my goals. I was already an adult when I was 14. Maybe I'll have a belated adolescence when I'm old".
Recording for Shakira's third studio album and her international debut album, titled Pies Descalzos, started in February 1995, after the success of her song "¿Dónde Estás Corazón?". Its reception motivated the Sony Music Entertainment (Colombia) label to commission Shakira to produce a complete rock album. She did songwriting and recording with Luis Fernando Ochoa, her principal music collaborator for her next three albums: Pies Descalzos, The Remixes and Dónde Están los Ladrones?. Pies Descalzos and Dónde Están los Ladrones? are Shakira's most important albums. The Remixes, mostly Pies Descalzos music redone as dance pieces, is a highly popular album where Shakira showcases newly recorded songs and vocals, while Ochoa demonstrates his instrument playing and music production skills. DJ Memê (Marcello Mansur), Pablo Florez and Javier Garza remixed many of the songs. With Pies Descalzos, Shakira began using musical influences from a number of world regions and genres, the trend she continued and cultivated later in her career.
In 1997, Shakira received three Billboard Latin Music Awards for Album of the Year for Pies Descalzos, Video of the Year for "Estoy Aqui", and Best New Artist. Pies Descalzos eventually sold over 5 million copies. Its success prompted the release of a remix album titled The Remixes, of which over one million were sold. The Remixes also included Portuguese language versions of "Estoy Aquí", "Un Poco de Amor" and "Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos", which were recorded as a result of Shakira's success in the Brazilian market, where Pies Descalzos sold nearly one million copies. Even before becoming fluent in English, Shakira learned Portuguese and was able to converse with her hosts on her visits to Brazil. At 19, Shakira was the best-selling female pop rocker in Latin America. She was named a national cultural ambassador by the president of Colombia, a distinction she shares with the writer Gabriel García Márquez.
Her fourth studio album was titled Dónde Están los Ladrones? It was recorded at the Miami studio of Gloria and Emilio Estefan, produced by Shakira with Emilio Estefan as the executive producer, and released in September 1998. The album's name was inspired by an incident at an airport where a suitcase containing her written lyrics was stolen. Dónde Están los Ladrones? became an even bigger worldwide hit than Pies Descalzos. The album had reached a peak position of number 131 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and held the top spot on the U.S. Latin Albums chart for 11 weeks. It has sold over 7 million copies worldwide and 1.5 million copies in the U.S. alone, making it one of the best selling Spanish albums in the U.S. Eight singles were taken from the album: "Ciega, Sordomuda", "Moscas en la Casa", "No Creo", "Inevitable", "Tú", "Si Te Vas", "Octavo Día", and "Ojos Así". "Ciega, Sordomuda" and "Tú" reached number one on the U.S. Latin chart, but it was "Ojos Así", together with its Arabic connotations and a striking video, that had become a truly global hit. The song infused elements of Arabic pop.
Social Network
Shakira maintains a strong presence across major social media platforms:
- Instagram: @shakira (Millions of followers, regularly updated with personal and professional content)
- Twitter/X: @shakira
- Facebook: Shakira
With over 95 million records sold worldwide, Shakira is one of the world's best-selling musicians. Noted to be an "international phenomenon" whose music, story, and legacy "resonate in every corner of the globe", Shakira has been described as an artistic link between the West and the East for popularizing Middle Eastern sounds in the West, and Western sounds in the East. For her philanthropic and humanitarian work, such as the Barefoot Foundation, and her contributions to music, she received the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year and Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year awards in 2011. Shakira was appointed to the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics in the United States in 2011, and was granted the honor of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012. She has been an advocate for the interests of children, the Latino minority in the U.S., women, and other under-represented groups.
Education
Shakira’s formal education began in Barranquilla. She demonstrated early academic aptitude but pursued her passion for music from a young age. Despite her focus on music, she has also been involved in philanthropic education initiatives, notably through her Barefoot Foundation, which supports educational opportunities for underprivileged children in Colombia.
Having been moved up in her class work ahead of her age, Shakira graduated from a convent secondary school when she was 15, but her professional involvement in music prevented her from continuing formal education. At the Colegio La Enseñanza that she attended, the nuns required students to help teach reading and writing to poor children, which gave Shakira one of her early exposures to child poverty issues. "The seeds of their education are well-planted in my system. I believe in God. I believe in the sacraments" – Shakira told the interviewer in 2002.
