Shakira: interview

- Is it true that you were a child prodigy?
- I do not know, I considered myself to be like everyone else. I just have amazing parents, especially my father. I was the only child, but the pope had eight more children from the previous marriage. Not only that my loved ones managed everything, so Dad wrote articles for newspapers even in his spare time. The family reigned creative atmosphere. I remember, I even asked Santa to give me a typewriter.

- You read it in three years, at four - wrote the first poem, at eight - the first song, at 14 - already signed a contract with Sony. My head was not spinning?
- And there was nothing to it - my first records were not at all successful. I just did what I really wanted. And my mom and dad helped me.

- And when you felt: everything, I'm a star?
- Better to say, I felt that I was already going to compose songs, turn them into a show, a holiday for myself and for the audience. At the age of 15, my mother and I moved to the capital of Colombia, Bagotu. There I participated in contests, starred in the television series and realized that TV is not for me. By this time, I heard plenty of English-speaking bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Nirvana. And I decided to make my music more rigid. Sony took it with understanding and released my album "Barefoot" (Pies Descalzos). He sold more than five million copies, it was awesome!

- Did you sing in Spanish?
- Of course. And in Portuguese. But I was very well received, for example, in Turkey, in France, in Canada. If the public does not even understand the word, it feels energetics, emotions, and this is the most important thing.

- But for success in the US you need English?
- Of course, I also studied English right in the studio, while I was working. In the late 90's in the States began a boom of Latin music and Latin American culture. I'm lucky to be understood in any language.

- Your success is amazing; it seems that you have time everywhere. What is the normal day of Shakira?
- I have not had any ordinary days. Only sometimes when I'm at home in the Bahamas. There I can play with my dogs, water florets, read a book. And then again the crazy house begins: rehearsals, records, concerts, crossings, interviews ...

- Do you like to control everything?
- Perhaps, yes. I'm a perfectionist, I love discipline. But I try to enjoy what I do, otherwise everything will fall apart.

- There are legends about your friendship with Marquez. Why did you refuse to appear in the film on his book "Love during the plague"?
- Gabriel Marquez is the pride of my country, parents love his books. I remember when my mother read "One Hundred Years of Solitude", she marked all the characters on a piece of paper, so as not to get confused. The fact that he drew attention to me and so remarkably speaks about me is a great honor, really. But the film is not filmed by Marquez. When I read the script and saw that I had to undress in the frame - I was scared. I can not imagine how my father will see this.

- Yeah, but he saw you on stage?
- Saw. There I sing and dance. Yes, it's sexy, but the dance exists for that. A striptease is not for me.

- Your girlfriend Beyonce long pulled, but still married. About your relationship with Antonio De La Rua goes a lot of contradictory rumors. Will you get married?
"Whoever says anything, we love each other." In life, there is nothing more important than love. And I'm not saying that I'll first make a career, I'll roll around the world with concerts, earn all the money, and then I'll think about the family. No. We just have to mature. And then get married.

- What does the wedding of your dream look like?
- A white dress is mandatory (laughs) and the ceremony is somewhere on a beautiful seashore. Probably so.
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