The Sad Karma Spiral of Shakira’s Ex Gerard Pique
We love a good comeuppance story here at Chump Lady. The precipitous decline in fortunes of Shakira’s ex, Gerard Pique, fits the bill nicely.
Since he cheated on Shakira, the megastar and mother of his two children, with a dust bunny he found under his bed Clara Chia, he has:
- Suddenly retired from football
- Lost millions in a failed business venture
- Been trolled mercilessly in Shakira’s international hit diss songs
- And… fallen down a hole.
No!
Yes.
Gerard Pique might be retired from football, but it doesn't mean he's stopped coming home from work with bruises.pic.twitter.com/zKbxk3Z2Or
— Football España (@footballespana_) October 25, 2023
Oddly satisfying isn’t it? My favorite part is how no one helps him out. Whoever those officials are, they just stare down the hole at him and then wander off. (Team Shakira?)
I believe Gerard’s last unrepentant words were: “I am going to keep doing what I want.” Which apparently is continually humiliating himself on the global stage.
Is there a hex on Gerard Pique?
It’s almost like he’s laboring under a curse. Shakira’s ex-mother-in-law, in fact, has reportedly argued that Shakira put some sort of voodoo spell on Gerard. It couldn’t possibly be the natural consequences of her son being a jerk…
Reports claim that the singer – who lived opposite Montserrat Bernabeu, Pique’s mother – allegedly put a witch-like mannequin on her balcony at her home.
It turns out her Barcelona home faces the house of Bernabeu – who was also mentioned in Shakira’s diss track.
Bernabeu told reporters in Barcelona that a doll dressed in black and with wild grey hair, a pointy hat and mounted on a broomstick – akin to the design of witch – was propped up on Shakira’s terrace.
Reports in Spain also claimed Bernabeu had asked Shakira to remove the statue or turn it around, with fears it was being used for other reasons, such as a curse on her.
One local Barcelona reporter said that the ex-mother-in-law was worried the singer was doing something else with the doll.
‘Weeks ago, I got some information that Pique’s mother was worried about an alleged ritual that was done to her with a black witch,’ Marc Leirado Millan said.
‘(After originally ignoring the claims) I went to check if this information was true or not, and sure enough, there was a life-size black witch with a white beard.’
Given these reports regarding Pique’s mother and Spain’s underperformance at the World Cup last year, it raises the question over whether the former defender is the latest to suffer from the alleged curse of Shakira.
Or maybe karma bit his ass?
Karma, by which I mean, the law of natural consequences. Like if you’re too distracted by your cellphone to look where you’re going, you might fall into a hole.
Or if you’re too distracted by your wandering dick to treat your partner respectfully, you may be the subject of international ridicule in a globally best-selling diss track.
Isn’t it heart-warming how everyone sings along? A spooky doll on a balcony didn’t do that. A powerfully talented woman living her best life without a loser did that.
Without Shakira to prop him up, Gerard is left to his failures. Womp, womp…
As the kids say (the new “bless your heart?”): Love that for him.
I learn so much here.
When a Queen leaves a Joker in her rear view mirror… 🃏
I’m guessing that Shakira spent a lot of time keeping him on the “straight and narrow” while they were together and, now that she’s not there to stop him from f*cking up, he’ll keep doing what he does best, which would appear to be f*cking up.
I don’t think that it’s karma; it’s just him being him.
LFTT
It must be so freeing for her not to have him in her life constantly effing up. You miss what you thought you had, but the reality is so much better in the rear view.
I could watch the video of him falling down the hole on repeat…
Like water, FW’s find their level.
Live by the sword, die by the sword”. Perfect example.
Live by the hole, die by the hole…
I don’t get it….
no only kidding very funny!
👍Yep. I didn’t know if that would land, but it did.
I assumed “sword” had a subtext lol.
🤣
My ex continues to be a loser. Lives in a two-bedroom apartment with his GF’s homeless parents living with them. (Why?? Dude needs to kick them out, no boundaries, I swear…) Continues to have perpetual money problems despite 4 adults living under one roof. Had his car repossessed earlier this year. Got into a car accident with our son in the car then asked said son to lie to me about it.
Every time our son has to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with his father, he comes back complaining that it sucked. Last year I had to do a second Thanksgiving dinner because XH didn’t do a big dinner for him and he felt robbed. The Christmas presents XH gives him always look like thrift store crap. I don’t think he’s ever come home with a Christmas gift from XH that he loved.
We have been divorced over nine years now. None of this is my doing. It’s just XH’s shitty life skills.
(BTW, please note that GF is not a former OW.)
I love your stories, Rarity. And yes, FWs never level up, do they?
A decade after D-Day, my ex is still a loser. He finally graduated college 5 years ago after a lifetime of fucking around and hasn’t done anything with it. Still driving for Uber at age 55 and won’t get a job. Out of curiosity, I looked him up a while ago on one of those people finder sites and found a history going back 30 years of liens, lawsuits, and evictions. I stopped looking after that. I still hear news through the grapevine from time to time, always negative. He’s a fuckup. Meanwhile I’m happy, successful, and thriving.
For years he told everyone I was the problem but it’s so obvious to our community now who the problem was.
Wow, how pathetic. Let’s blame WITCHCRAFT for his own doing. Poor Gerard. It can’t be his fault, no, no.
This reminds me of my ex FW. Even back when we were still together, he always had some “bad luck” and something bad was happening TO him. So he would of course always play the victim and I always had to be the understanding partner. If I wasn’t understanding enough, I got the rage channel of course. Now I see that he was never a victim, it was always just consequences of him being a narcissistic asshole.
I kind of like blaming witchcraft…..it makes us seem more powerful 😉
Does it really? It makes us seem coo-coo. First of all, it’s blameshifting (for sure, it’s not his fault, somebody else must have done it TO him). Second of all, it sells the narrative of her still being “obsessed” with him and far from being “meh”. It means focusing her time and energy on him. Like CL would say, it means centrality for him. Even coo-coo kibbles are stil kibbles. 😀
This sounds just like my ex. The world was always out to get him. Of course it was NEVER his fault.
He blamed me, eventually. Yet when we split up, his “bad luck” continued, while my life got SIGNIFICANTLY better, especially financially.
My FW had so much bad luck, we actually went to see our Parish priest and asked him if we were cursed! He fobbed us of with ” Where d’ye get that idea? Sure there’s none of that anymore!”
I now recognise, as he has told me how he’s continued to make a hames of things since I made him leave, looking for sympathy which I didn’t give him, that not all of it was bad luck, so much as him being an ape, who thought he could do what he liked with no consequences! Then gets all upset when consequences occur and cribs about it!
Some of it WAS just bad luck, things such as our satellite dish rusting and falling off when all the neighbours have had theirs far longer than us and had the same amount of rain falling on them and wind blowing at them but were in fine condition, plus a car accident that even the other party’s insurance loss adjuster told him he believed what he was saying from the damage to our car, because “I’ve been at this a long time!”.
I do suspect that SOME of the things that happened to us over the years could have been due to curses, because they were so bizarre, like the satellite dish to name but one weird occurrence, and because from what I have learned from exorcists, being abused/raped/traumatised, especially in childhood as he was, can cause a curse to come upon you. Not all of it though!
I’ve still a load of mess to sort out after him, I’m struggling financially because the COL has shot through the roof in Ireland but my income hasn’t, and I do have bad luck of my own over the years, as well as having made stupid decisions ( like marrying FW!), BUT I’m hoping life will get simpler and less mucked up now he’s gone! I feel sorry for him, but not enough to have him back and be put through the ringer again! Feck that!
As a fellow Celt, I do believe in the spiritual side of things, including “bad luck” but I think people bring a lot of it on themselves with their bad attitudes and actions. Your ex is probably a magnet for this stuff because of the way HE acts and interacts with others and his self centered attitude towards life. New agers would call it “bad energy” and I tend to agree with that. But good luck or bad, we’re still responsible for what we do, including how we react to the things that just seem to happen. I think that things will continue to improve now that you’ve got him out of your life. Some people just seem to have a whirl of mess about them, like Pigpen in Charlie Brown.
“Without Shakira to prop him up, Gerard is left to his failures. Womp, womp…”
I don’t mean this in anyway as other than it is what it is.
But, this strikes me as not that uncommon. I do know that in my case, and I didn’t figure all this out for several years, my ex basically crashed and burned. I had mentioned all the things I did to help him, at his request, and because he was my husband and I wanted to see help him. (please note he was also a hard worker, but evidently he was hiding a secret life). Yes had he married someone else at eighteen, they could have done what I did; but he didn’t marry someone else he married me.
I won’t repeat the story but he basically he crashed and burned over the next few years. Did he have to, no; was it a curse no, but he no long had anyone in his life that put him first and worked tirelessly as his helpmate.
It was simply the natural progression of the CL phrase: “they take themselves with them”.
Yes, I realized (and I hope he did too) that I did a LOT of “propping” and a lot of damage control, which gave the impression that my ex had his life together a lot more than he really did. OW thought FW was a mature adult, and had no clue that I was the one who kept our life running smoothly. I managed the money, I managed the apointments. I did 98% of the house and yard work. I bought and maintained the house and the cars. I did the taxes. I did most of the childcare. I also provided a lot of emotional regulation for FW. Without me, he (and OW) quickly spiraled into chaos and debt. I think she figured out pretty quickly that FW wasn’t what he had appeared to be. When OW couldn’t fix his problems either, he started to abuse her the way he’d abused me, and she left. His life completely crashed and burned, and he ended up taking his own life. There had been several times throughout our relationship when he was suicidal, and I was there to help him through it. OW had no clue what to do with him when he got in that state (one time we were BOTH there when he was in a depressive episode, and all she could do was whine that he wasn’t looking at/talking to HER). And then of course, she wasn’t there either once she left him. Once he was alone and there was no one to talk some sense into him, he went through with it. He had such a hard time seeing past the “now” and couldn’t imagine that things might get better. It’s sad, but I can’t accept any responsibility for his choices.
Interesting thoughts on self harm. Perhaps neither I nor my 2 cheaters, knew how much propping upI did for them…hmmm. My “help”, tolerance, understanding etc.. towards these cheaters was really chores of self preservation, now that I look back. If they failed, I failed, if they crashed, I crashed. I wanted to save our union because in a marriage you look to the other person for support right? My first husband left me and gained 150 pounds in 2 years. He met Schmoopie at Golds gym. Worked out with her every night in many different ways that I had no clue about. He looked awesome when he left me. But I heard from mutual acquaintances that he stayed a bully and mean to others in his life and i imagine to OW/ later wifetress as well of course. So what did I lose? My second cheater of 32 years, I get to watch him from afar…but i hear he has dyed his hair black( wife 20 years younger) and with the ED he blamed on me and being married too long…must be revealing itself to his new bride. Plus his mental health- bipolar disease, narcissist traits and creepy double life can’t be helping his new relationship. So I feel like I’m the winner and even if he descends into his own hell,it will not be on me. All my former husbands had agency and made their own decisions. I believe letting mine go and saving myself is an act of true love. I am not their mother and I do not have super powers like I thought I did. All this took me back to humility and there I stay. I couldn’t save US after all, but I could save me.
I sense many abusers are walking suicides. DV statistics suggest this (very high rates of suicide among batterers) though some abusers are so highly compartmentalized that they don’t even acknowledge the death wish. From my recent reading, I’m starting to think part of what makes abusers abusive is probably some tendency to try to “externalize” their own self destructiveness through “projective identification”– literally trying to drive other people to suicidal ideation out of the demented idea that this mental state is a “hot potato” and can be gotten rid of by dumping it on someone else. Anyway, of course you shouldn’t take even a micron of responsibility for what he did since, in the end, it was either him or you and he was the sole instigator of that zero sum game. The people who refused to be destroyed by him can’t be blamed if his self loathing had nowhere to go but “home” once he ran out of victims.
I did blame myself at first for not seeing the signs, but even FW’s parents told me not too. His mom told me “we’ve been trying to save him for years” (he attempted suicide as a teen).
I like the lyrics to this song by Beth Crowley
“Savior”
No it’s nothing new
I see angels and devils and heaven and hell when I look at you
I try to escape but your lies are more real to me than the truth
That’s how it’s always been
Now you’re begging me
‘Cause your mind is a cage and you say I’m the one who can set you free
So wrapped up in your pain that you can’t see the chains that are binding me
I’ve got demons of my own
I’m not your savior
I’m just trying to keep my head above the water
I won’t sacrifice myself to make you stronger
When I know you’d never do the same for me
Save yourself and finally let me breathe
You’re unsatisfied
So you wave your mistakes right in front of my face like you think they’re mine
You won’t take the blame but somehow still expect me to sympathize
I can’t let you bring me down
I’m not your savior
I’m just trying to keep my head above the water
I won’t sacrifice myself to make you stronger
When I know you’d never do the same for me
Save yourself and finally let me breathe
You buried yourself so far in the ground
I offered a hand to pull you back out
But your misery just wanted company
I’m not your savior
I’m not your savior
No, not this time
I’m not your savior
I’m just trying to keep my head above the water
I won’t sacrifice myself to make you stronger
When I know you’d never do the same for me
Save yourself and finally let me breathe
Brilliant. I’ll have to bookmark that one, thank you. Another way of putting it is “You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep another warm.” Glad you didn’t.
It sounds like one way or another, it’s about blaming someone else for your faults or failings or bad luck. Because they can never be at fault themselves, it has to be someone else and so they attack them. Maybe it’s the ultimate result of narcissism.
Blame works, it seems to dump all your issues onto someone else. A scape goat. Put your sins on their heads. Once I moved my things out and went no contact, peace settled on me. What settled on him is that he needed to find another goat, which he did instantly and from on line. Neither cheater could live in peace alone. That is a curse in itself.
The Blame Olympics!!!! Light that torch!
My ex seemed to think that the right woman would solve all of his problems. When I didn’t (couldn’t) do that, he dumped me for OW. But SHE couldn’t either, and he turned on her too. Surprisingly, she left him (I did not think she had it in her – it’s the only smart thing she ever did), and he was totally unprepared for that and had no backup plan.
I often thought about all the terrible, heinous things he said to me over the years and I realized eventually that he must have thought those same things about himself, and what a horrible, dark place his mind must have been. He couldn’t be alone because once he was, those thoughts absolutely consumed him. Even our son wasn’t reason enough for him to stick around, face himself, and try and solve his problems. He spoke to our son on a video call only hours before he took his own life. I can’t imagine being in such desperation. Early on in our separation, I felt like life wasn’t really worth living, and I thought I’d be miserable forever, but I was willing to continue because my son was worth living for even if *I* might never be happy again. Fortunately for both of us, I am happier now than I ever thought possible and life is great. FW will miss every part of his son’s life now, and that is a tragedy, no matter how awful he was.
Yes! That’s what I’m obsessively reading about these days– “projective identification.” Google it along with “domestic violence/rape” and you’ll find a trove of information that will ring bells. It’s arguably the clinical theory behind the adage, “Every accusation from a narcissist is a confession.” But it doesn’t merely mean the abuser “projects.” It means they do it with such intense investment (believing their own bs) that victims end up virtually spellbound and may actually internalize the shame and guilt that the abuser refuses to cop to. The theory is used to explain why so many rape victims seem to feel inexplicably crushed with shame when they did nothing wrong. It doesn’t help that the social context may often blame the victim but it appears there’s something about the attitude of rapists that “imparts” this infection of shame.
I don’t know how I missed that theory when I was doing DV advocacy. We had clinical consultants who would talk about how abusers “project” but no one brought up that specific concept nor the “spellbinding” effect for some reason. If I’d learned about it, I would have had better armor against FW’s attempts to pin all his own bs, the sins of his narcy mother and of his borderline barfly AP onto me.
I just finished watching 20/20 about the murder suicide of the AP and chump of Mark Gerardot. I had forgotten the details so l googled the story and read some of his interviews. No one calls him out on the fact that he was cheating. He does say he could of handled things differently. He blames his wife throughout his interviews for spying on him. It’s not what he did but his wife spying on him. She didn’t spy on him because she had nothing better to do. It’s another instance of blaming the victim not the cheater and his AP for cheating. I don’t condone murder but his version of events sounds like a load of crap. He acts like the wounded victim. As if he was just a nice guy who found true love while married to a difficult woman.
Yes yes YES THEY MISS OUT. That is the curse they must live with. Themselves in a very dark place. It is a sorrowful loss for everyone but it is a choice and love let’s that happen in the natural coarse of events. I think those who stay with abusers and continue to be the scapegoat of that abuser, never get to fall in love again with that person who used to be full of life and love. Themselves. That healthy happy person. After two cheaters, I now see what they saw in me..the kind person who loved without thinking, who gave her all. I rolled up the door mat with the welcome sign on it and let them choose another sacrificial lamb. I have never felt so at peace. TO. BE ME one more time.
I’m so glad you are not taking responsibility for his choices. We chumps have a tendency to do that. Heck, even non-chumps want to take responsibility when someone makes the choice to end things. Good job.
I think my favorite was when Pique was denied a table at a restaurant because the owner was a Shakira fan – the restaurant was in Barcelona (Pique’s home city).
Also, I imagine Pique should never step foot in Colombia now lol.
Because of Spain’s not-so-long-ago violent repression of women under the Franco dictatorship, I’m actually a bit disturbed by Shakira’s ex-MIL’s accusations of “witchcraft” since it’s sort of a fascist/misogynist dog whistle. It might not be immediately apparent but some of the attacks against Shakira in Spain might relate to a long standing “religious war” between right and left factions in the Catholic church. Spain is currently going through a lot of political upheaval so sides are squaring off. The same is true of the church in general.
Aside from being an “uppity” female who dared to challenge her husband’s wandering willy, Shakira is openly a Catholic socialist in the Latin American “liberation theology” tradition which swept through the church in South America in the 60s in response to Vatican II. I was raised agnostic but studied in college how the Vatican II movement in the church had a massive political impact and even prompted the US and Europe to launch “Operation Condor”– a campaign to oust democratically elected leftist and labor-friendly leaders in Latin America and replace them with military regimes favorable to US and European corporate interests.
The funny thing is that reason Vatican II and liberation theology were seen as so threatening is that it was a movement to follow more closely the words of Christ which– to fascist elements within the church and corporate power– smack of “socialism.” So while many members of the church in South America (figures like Archbishop Oscar Romero and the current pope) were often supportive of “hippie” equality movements and protected dissidents against various military dictatorships, the church under Spanish dictator Franco went way in the other direction and collaborated with the regime to repress, torture and kill dissidents and steal their children.
Anyway, the whole “witchcraft” thing may sound silly to us but may still have teeth in Spain. My guess is that Pique’s family may be campaigning to grab full custody of Shakira’s children. The Franco regime’s official justification for mass killing and stealing an estimated 300K infants from Republican women had some “witchy” carry-overs from the Inquisition mixed with eugenics and a bit of Freud– the idea that female dissidents are carriers of the politically psychopathic “red gene” which threatens to “feminize” men and “emasculate” Spain. Stealing and selling their children was meant to “reduce the expression” of the putative gene. There’s also something of the witch hunt in Spanish authorities’ financial persecution of Shakira. She’s not only an uppity female but has repeatedly made stands against fascism, for instance her series of projects with late Argentine Dirty War survivor Mercedes Sosa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzPPQvHIZo
Thank you for sharing this important context. Truly frightening stuff.
It happens to the best of them. Disordered people are going to disorder, many times we were their brake to prevent things from happening to them.
So far this year, my ex has had to deal with a multitude of issues. I hear it from our sons, I do not ask.
I’ll take the house I’m working on, grad school, and the possibility of dating another single mother over what they’re dealing with.
Oh Lord, yes, as HOAC says, beware of black mould, it’s potentially deadly. When my parents bought this house decades ago, they mustn’t have got a surveyor to do an inspection, which surprises me still because my father was a painter and decorator and worked on building sites many times over the years and was normally very copped-on! Anyway, by the time my mother had died, every time we came back to visit him there was more black mould around the place. By the time I inherited it, there was black mould and damp everywhere except the living room. Getting new double glazing ( the previously installed windows had been sealed with….CEMENT BAGS! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Crooks they were that put those windows in! A disgrace!) and doors fitted, plus wall cavity insulation helped a lot but there is some on the bathroom ceiling which I can’t reach and have asked my son to get rid of because he’s that much taller than me! Anyway, my poor father had lost a lung at 18 due to TB and the few years of breathing in that black mould was probably what did for him in the end as he died of pneumonia. His last words to me were “I’m suffering!”. It was a horrible death for him, God love him!
My son, previously fit as a butcher’s dog, also developed asthma shortly after we came to live here! I would get some legal advise about this if I were you, because had I known then what I know now, I would have done very differently. I’d strongly advise you to stop your son staying there if you can legally, until the black mould has been got rid of altogether and preventative measures taken!
Be aware if your sons develop respiratory symptoms if they stay at your ex’s water damaged house. Chronic black mold infections can gradually take root in the lungs or sinuses, starting with nighttime post-nasal drip and progressing to cough, malaise, brain fog, etc. It can get pretty serious in some people. I don’t know how it works in your region but you may be able to demand mold testing as a condition of your sons staying over there.
It’s good, the ex is deathly allergic to mold so they had to gut the whole area.
Did you get confirmation that the house is clean? I ask because GERD can be a symptom of chronic mold exposure. https://rainbowrestores.com/blog/mold-symptoms-is-mold-making-me-sick
Ask me how I discovered these things (hint: FW + boozy, spendy affair + neglected roof leaks).
I have not seen or heard any symptoms from them, and due to her allergies, I trust she has tested as we tested every house we moved into because mold will kill her, she will go into anaphylactic shock if she is exposed. She cannot take certain antibiotics due to it.
The GERD set in right after the separation she initiated so she could be with her new dude; this was six months before the new house. Lying and stress will catch up with you, along with suppressing your emotions.
It could be more than karma. GERD also has an association with STDs. https://statcarewalkin.com/info/can-std-cause-acid-reflux.html
These karma stories are quite satisfying.
They’re wonderful bed time reading. CL should put out a whole book of them for CN.
I would agree except chumps get very hurt too. This war does not spare us. I take quiet satisfaction if I hear stories of their turn of fortunes, but I have to press forward and keep an eye on my tigers too. I want to be a much better, healthier person in my heart and detox my presumed super powers that i could change anyone. To live well is still the best revenge.
Good plan! I would just add that, since laughter can increase immune function and longevity, I’ll get my smirks in where I can lol.
Yes they are. I’m no contact with the ex and so are my children. I don’t ever get any of his karma stories. He has remarried to someone who was not the affair partner. The new wife appliance is probably keeping his life in order while he cheats on her. But she has not gotten him to take my name off the house. We’ve been divorced since 2011, and my name is still on the marital home. LOL. (There’s no mortgage and my attorney told me there isn’t a downside)
So…you own half of the house they’re living in!
Yep. LOL!
I’m here for this. Karma is glorious. Wasband told me this week that i was controlling and a bully. I was so controlling that I continually didn’t care that he went out to bars until 4 am. Such a bully that he cheated. What he means is I tried to hold him accountable for all his shitty behavior and he didn’t like it. Then OW put all these ideas in his head and he started calling me controlling and a bully recently. Whatever, I’ll be the bad guy if you need.
I guess OWs didn’t have parents or high school friends who warned them about buying guys’ sob stories about dem bitches that done ’em wrong. I got my “combat pay” line from my dad who used to say that to men who complained about exes, as in “I hope she got combat pay.” He grew up in the hood witnessing rampant domestic violence and figured out that no one plays victim more than wife-beating gorillas. I don’t think my dad discounted the existence of abusive women but he didn’t trust the accounts of men who go around dissing their wives and exes to everyone who will listen.
No contact
Mine started calling me controlling because OW said I was too. She had never met me. It was based on me not being accepting of his crazy alcoholic behaviour.
I suspect it is a common tactic of APs to convince the FW of that.
I think both cheaters dissing the chump is foreplay in affairs. FWs also typically feed the OWs all sorts of whiny bs.
What a douche canoe…. The whole world is mocking him and his nutty mother. I love these “natural consequences” posts. I married XH when I was a very young, desperate single mother. He was brilliant and had great earning potential and love bombed me. He also had no integrity and laughed about bullying/intimidating a witness— I disregarded that and married him and had three kids with him and invested 25 years of my life with him— the kids and I have had to suffer the consequences for my mistakes. XH has continued to devolve since DDAY, 9 years ago. His health is gone— he’s a 55 year old obese alcoholic. He’s been hospitalized numerous times for chest pains and falling and hitting his head. . AP, who is 16 years younger, has developed a life threatening seizure syndrome and can’t drive or do many other daily tasks. They are miserable AF. Too bad, so sad…. Not!
The witch doll is probably a fuck you aimed at the MIL. Excellent work, Shakira.
These are people living in 2023, talking about curses and voodoo. Smh.
I have a feeling Shakira displayed the witch doll to mock her MIL’s toxic Euro stereotype of South Americans/Caribbeans as a bunch of godless creoles who practice Santaria and Voodoo.
From living in South America part of the year for nearly a decade, I learned there’s a kind of dueling snobbery between Spain and Latin America. Your more patriarchal Spaniards tend to think of Latin Americans as “mongrels” and “savages” because of Eurocentric racism against anyone with a drop of indigenous/African heritage (which is most of Latin America). The more nationalist Latin Americans tend to stereotype people from Spain as badly-educated and tacky. In South American television shows, people with accents from Spain are depicted as simpletons.
Obviously both stereotypes are unfair to vast swathes of people but I suspect that, because of Shakira’s strong “inclusive” attitude, all the bigotry was coming from her in-laws and she was mostly reacting.
I think it’s pretty clear to most people that’s what it is but ex MIL has got to work up some kind of fake drama….you can see where sonny gets it from.
Right? and I doubt casting curses is illegal anyway, I mean how would you prove that, even if it was illegal.
Where’s my karma. I’ve last three jobs since this all began one year ago. I have the kids, family and friends and there is not one person who has said o deserve this. He is living with Ap and seems delighted with his life. He told oldest that he doesn’t contact me because he has caused irreparable damage and doesn’t wNt to upset me. No one saw this coming. My oldest feels he needs to hold us all together. My daughter’s dream place of work is closing in December and my youngest is getting a general discharge from military for depression. Yes he pays all of the bills and I have the support and love of the kids. I know I need to get over it but I don’t see a way out of this malaise. I go to counseling I take meds but I’m the one left in the house by myself. Granted two of the three kids will be moving back with me soon. Yeah I know I need to get over myself but I’m still sad and mad that my future that I counted on is not what I thought it would be. I can’t seem to keep a job for a variety of reasons. But I’m a good person with a little of bad karma. I am so happy I have the live and support of my kids and everyone I meet but I’m a mess. I’ve been on this site for a year and have not participated but this last karma kick is gettin me down. Help!!!
I get it! I spend about 90-99% of my time totally alone since I made FW leave. I have my adult son, who is lovely but he works and has his friends and has to have a life of his own! It’s not his job to be my companion nor to hold my hand through this, although he is very empathic and caring, it’s not appropriate for me to lean on him emotionally.
For the first few months, my best friend in England was speaking to me on Face Time nearly every day, but that’s dropped right off this last month, because she has so much on her own plate, with her own childrens’ health problems and her husband having heart disease and facing major open heart surgery in the near future, so I am not wanting to keep putting on her either. I had some counselling but it was only 6 free sessions. I’m on Social Welfare and a very small NHS pension from when I was a nurse in England, so I can’t afford to pay for therapy. I can’t afford much at all actually and without my son’s financial help, I would be nearing destitution.
I do own my house, but it’s become so run down, FW turned my garage and back garden into Steptoe’ yard, full of his crap that he hoarded and he still hasn’t taken it all. He kept say he’d fix things but he stopped doing anything around the place once he went hard on the cocaine from about a year ago, and was working 6 nights a week to pay for it, witholding more and more funds from me, but expecting me to still keep everything going-food, bills, the car; you know the score!
I’ve ended up on ADs, which I was trying to avoid. I still get times when I’m over whelmed by sorrow and heartache, and miss the way things were, when I thought he was a good person who loved me and we were best friends who were on each other’s side! But I know that even if that was once true, it hasn’t been for a long time and he would have driven me into the asylum or even the grave if I hadn’t made him leave. I’m 63 now, my nursing qualifications were obsolete long ago and my chances of getting any sort of a job, never mind one with decent pay, are slim to none. I have just been diagnosed with osteo-arthritis, have a massive fibroid, a small fracture in a bone in my left foot that kills me if I have walked even a small distance. I’ve no friends whatsoever here in Ireland and my parents are long dead and I have no contact with any other family except for my son. Sometimes, I am overcome with terror that it will never get any better and I’ll die in this place,totally alone and in poverty, my son having left home and fulfilled his dream to go to Australia ( which I would make him do if he felt he had to give up on it- I want him to live his life!). Either that or I’ll go mad and have to be institutionalised!
But I CANNOT give into these feelings and thoughts! I have to keep going and do a bit every day, find something every day to make me smile or laugh, be grateful for the blessings I do have, especially that my son is safe and well, which is the most important thing of all! I have to keep hoping that I will gain a life again, one that’s fulfilling and has real friends in it, genuine people of goodwill and integrity. I have my faith and that is my rock, what keeps me from despairing.
So, I get it! I really, really do! Please don’t give into despair! You have your children and you WILL get over this! You have CL and us here at CL too- we are on your side and we get it!
I don’t think you need to “get over yourself.” I actually think you need to be more on your own side and learn to argue your own case. I think you dealt with a particularly diabolical abuser who managed to almost drive your children and maybe you to despair. The fault for this lies entirely with the abuser and their particularly evil methods.
I was an advocate for survivors of domestic violence for many years and, if I learned anything, it’s that DV survivors often become ground-breaking social science geniuses. Not kidding. Survivors of domestic abuse tend to have a superhuman learning curve for absorbing social science research about abuse. They learn to read and understand psychological studies about domestic abuse and post-traumatic stress far faster than most PhD students– and also learn to reject bs research– because their lives and their children’s lives depend on it.
So I would recommend giving yourself permission to “study” abuse like you were a scientist looking at a bug under a microscope. Give yourself credit for having actually more “real life” experience than most clinical social science PhD candidates. In other words, in an experiential sense, you’re smarter than the academics because you’ve lived it. A good place to start might be some of the resources offered by Chump Lady on her podcasts like Dr. George Simon (he writes and presents about cheating and manipulation). Another good resource is Dr. Ramani’s Youtube channel about narcissism.
I am so sorry this is happening to you Seriously. The first year is the hardest and it’s no wonder that you are still depressed and sad. Getting to ‘meh’ takes time so don’t beat yourself up about that. Sometimes doing well means that you just keep getting up and moving forward.
As for your ex and his AP – the karma bus is sometimes slow in coming. Life is long, and they may look like they are doing well but that will not likely be the case forever. He did not get a character transplant so he’s still the same lying a$$hole he was when he was cheating on you. He will probably do the same thing to her that he did to you. When I think of my former FW, I know that his punishment is that he will still be that same dysfunctional, lying, cheating FW that he’s always been. He will never experience a deep, loving relationship because he is not capable. He live with a series of short term flings forever…. I am glad I am not him.
This is so true. Of course, he may not care about a deep and loving relationship because……he already had that and it’s not something he can appreciate. But the Karma Bus will be coming to his neighborhood….I posted an example way above about Bernie Madoff – a financial criminal – it took a long time for the Karma Bus to come for him but when it did……it backed over a couple of times. Nobody shits on the world with impunity, they can only try to hide it for a while.
P.S. About the meds, I had to do that too, but be careful you don’t take anything that’s too addictive that you might have trouble getting off later. That happened to me and it can cause some other issues, esp health issues. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do but if there’s an alternative, I hope you can consider it.
There are some periods in life when everything just seems to go south. Whether we blame reincarnation or astrology or witchcraft (believe me I’ve considered everything at some point, LOL) it just happens. I think we just go through trials in life that hopefully build us up and make us stronger. When my first cheater up and left about 35 years ago, everything crashed at the same time. I mean….EVERYTHING. He was gone without a word, never saw or heard from him again, my INDUSTRY reorganized (not just the specific job) – I was looking for new jobs sometimes several times a year – my invalided father died and my mother had to come live with me for some time, I developed health problems, my best friend fucked me over for a job….this was all in less than 3 years or so….one thing after another. But that period did end and I’ve had a lot of stability for many years now. There’s always problems, it’s the nature of life especially if you’re not rich, but it DOES stabilize if you keep chugging away. So just know that this is a temporary period for you, if you keep true to yourself and your family, and keep working at your goals, you WILL come out ahead in the end. Sometimes it feels endless but I’m nearly 70 so, keep slaying those dragons. IT WILL GET BETTER, I PROMISE!
It’s been one year and I’ve had the bad karma. But I have the kids and friends and family. He pays all the bills but I can’t seem to keep a job. I’ve had three in one year and I can’t seem to get out of my malaise. My oldest feels like he needs to hold us together since his father dropped out. My daughter dream job is closing its doors in Feb and youngest is getting a general discharge from military for depression. I feel like the four of us have had the bad karma. All while the ex happily lives and works with someone my oldest says is nothing special. I feel like the ex is going along merrily while I deal with the emotional
Fallout with the kids and my jobs. I have to hold it all together for them then fall apart on my own. I guess karma would be ex and other blowing up spectacularly but I know being them is bad enough. But feeling sorry for myself and my future that is I know especially since I am having so much job trouble. Help me!!! I left my last job for what I thought would be a better job and it was not!! I want to be out of this malaise and forget about what was and move on but some days are hard. Help
While I don’t necessarily have anything against voodoo hexes, I think it’s more like people who make bad decisions in love make bad decisions in other things. Someone who lies to his spouse and mother of kids and hides critical info from her, will probably do this to other people and in other areas as well, particularly finances. Many adulterers are also alcohol and drug addicts and generally are not reliable people. I’ve seen a lot of examples of this in sports in general. Reckless is reckless.
Yeah. Also, going from a sane spouse to an affair partner is like replacing an adult partner with a chaos monkey. You got rid of someone responsible for someone who is right there in the front row, cheering on your worst impulses.
Birds of a feather flock together though! When FW was devaluing me, he was choosing to spend more and more of his time with people who were varying degrees of toxic, including one fella whom he’s perviously despised, as it was clear he was a wrong ‘un from childhood. He had nearly beaten to death his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child a few years ago- I have no idea why he has been released or was given a job! It appalls and sickens me that he’s out, strutting around, just as much of a braggart as ever he was ( no humility=no remorse!) but what disturbed me even more than FW’s cheating, cocaine use, hanging round with petty dealers/criminals , was his getting so pally with that woman-hating near murderer! I am sure he’s a psychopath and fear he will one day kill someone, most likely a woman! And FW is mates with him!!!
The saying “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” kept coming into my mind! FW’s excuse was “I thought he’d straightened himself out!” Yeah, right!
We all feel most comfortable around people who are on our wavelength, so people of bad character gravitate towards others of bad character. People like us chumps, who are not toxic and generally have very good characters, make them feel bad about themselves so they swerve us most of the time and only bother when they think they can make some use of us!
My therapist once said “she will pull you down with her.” I always remember that. It was a very simple observation, but very true.
I think that fits my ex to a T.
This is SO true….it’s like deliberately buying a lemon car….yeah, it’s a change….but it’s a LEMON. The problems are built in once you get away from the dreamlike aura of the affair down to the brass tacks of life. Those brass tacks can hurt like a mother. APs don’t generally make good life partners.
” Someone who lies to his spouse and mother of kids and hides critical info from her, will probably do this to other people and in other areas as well, particularly finances. ”
That is really the crux of it. It is why if the adultery partners are in the work place it usually affect their profession and reputation. They force the company to have to deal with their bad decisions, and if they make personal decisions this bad…
And ONCE AGAIN, this shows that what YOU are like is not the issue. You can be as beautiful, sexy, talented, competent, successful, and rich as SHAKIRA, and you STILL get cheated on. Always remember its not about you, it’s about the adulterer and his or her problems. I don’t think Shakira is some secret asshole, I’ve never had that impression. Again, we see that cheating is NOT about the Chump….it’s not our fault. Don’t let anyone sell you that hogwash.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I find it so weird that we chumps have to deal with horrific FWs — that’s bad enough — but many of us ALSO have to deal with flying monkey IN LAWS. Double the bullying, double the fun.
The fact that Montserrat Bernebau (Pique’s mother) is bad-mouthing Shakira to reporters and gets her crazy spread in the media, is so ridiculous.
I’m not famous and I still had to deal with a MIL who not only sided with her FW son and AP, but wrote me a nasty, bullet-pointed letter about how it was all my fault. Then she turned around and told the rest of the family her version of the story — that I kicked out FW and AP coworker saved him and let him stay at her house. Then AP and FW fell in love. How sweet! And MichelleShocked is evil. FW has his own PR agent for impression management.
It takes so much effort for these mothers to cover up their sons’ shit behavior. That’s a lot of lies and bullshit. And of course FW’s mom is also very much the type that points out that she’s “a good Christian.”
She could go to church every day, but clearly the teachings aren’t taking.
“Bernabeu told reporters in Barcelona that a doll dressed in black and with wild grey hair, a pointy hat and mounted on a broomstick – akin to the design of witch – was propped up on Shakira’s terrace. ”
This is actually a pretty funny troll. It might inspire others to do this to nasty ex MIL but most of us don’t live right across the way from them. I’m surprised MIL doesn’t recognize this as a tribute to herself.
OMG, I just read this story about their relationship that CL just posted and my jaw kept dropping. This guy is a total flaming asshole – 7 years, boffing this broad in Shakira’s home, etc etc. Make some MORE voodoo dolls, Shakira!!!!! This could be a cottage industry.
Many chumps may not have the money, talent or appeal of Shakira but ALL OF US can be mighty. When I got a protection order? Mighty! When I found a job that had child care available, Mighty! When I stopped begging and crying for mercy Mighty! When I packed up my house and moved to an apartment alone, Mighty! When I told all who would listen what happened to me and how cheaters affected our children’s and grandchildrens lives,Mighty. When I got a lawyer and said no more!! Mighty!!!! Shakira wrote her songs for all of us. I’d be thrilled to see Esther Pearl and Shakira sing and do a dancing duo. I know who would win! We are ALL MIGHTY. Not all our cheaters get hexes or fall or lose careers,. Sometimes it looks like they are winning the Impression management. But without us chumps, they go down several rungs and we see that CHARACTER MATTERS to us. We just hit the high road no matter what the karma shows. I believe in a God of justice so I’m not looking over at him any more. Closer to MEH every Monday.!!
This whole situation made me think of…….BERNIE MADOFF…..that may seem like a strange connection but…..Bernie Madoff was an incredibly intelligent and gifted guy, especially financially – he was the head of the Nasdaq for some period of time – he was well liked by people, had an apparently good family life and was in what looked like legit business for DECADES….and then it all started to come down, I think it might have been the 2008 financial crisis that really took him down. Once the investigation got rolling it was discovered that he scammed on person after another including icons like Holocaust victim & historian Elie Wiesel….WHO SCREWS OVER ELIE WIESEL!!!……and he had his own family deeply involved in his largest Ponzi scheme in history (that we know of). Years of endless lying to everyone, to hiding massive amounts of fraud, to juggling all kinds of things….and what did it end up in? With him in jail, BOTH SONS dead, obviously from the stress of this, his poor wife basically went into self imposed isolation. So I just wanted to post this little bit about Madoff because disordered people screw up in various areas of their life, sometimes spectacularly so and it’s not always about sex….it can be sex, it can be finance, it can be drugs/alcohol, or it can be some combination.
Among the lyrics to her song about him:
‘I’m too big for you, that’s why you’re with someone just like you’
Supposedly this is the witch on what’s supposed to be her balcony. It looks a lot more like a Muppet than like Black MAgic. Maybe she just didn’t want someone looking in her windows.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11637341/Shakira-puts-WITCH-doll-balcony-said-face-former-mother-laws-home.html
That’s unreal. He literally just…walked off the edge of a stage? Is that what happened?
I agree with everybody who said she was probably keeping him from messing up too badly!