Shakira settled her Spanish tax case in a bid to "protect" her children.

The 47-year-old pop star agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine in her tax fraud case last year - but Shakira maintains that she wasn't guilty.

The 'Hips Don't Lie' hitmaker - who has sons Milan, 11, and Sasha, nine, with former soccer star Gerard Pique - said in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo: "I want to leave my children the legacy of a woman who explained her reasons calmly and in her own time, when she considered it necessary, not when she was forced to.

"I need them to know that I made the decisions I made to protect them, to be by their side and to get on with my life. Not out of cowardice or guilt."

Shakira accused the Spanish authorities of "burning [her] at the stake" in order to make themselves look better.

The pop star decided to live in Spain as an expatriate in 2015, and she was accused of tax fraud in 2018.

Shakira - who split from Gerard in 2022 - added: "What seemed like a polite way of formalising my situation turned out to be a trap.

"A person who spends their time touring the world cannot have the intention of being a tax resident in a place just because the person they are in a relationship with at the time lives there."

Shakira insisted that she's "always fulfilled" her tax obligations - but she feels that now is the right time to speak out.

She said: "There may be those who wonder why I am bothering to make these statements now. The first reason is my children. We have lived in an era marked by a tone of arrogance from the State, but bullying is not the same as giving reasons.

"Things are not solved by burning one public figure at the stake every year as if it were an Inquisition trial in order to recover lost prestige."