14 DAY TRIAL // Last November, Antonio de la Rua, Shakira’s ex boyfriend, sued her for $100 million (€77.9 million) claiming that, as her manager, as part of an oral agreement between them, he had been instrumental to her success and she never paid him.
On subsequent court dates, de la Rua argued that Shakira asked him for help with her career, which he gladly provided for her and thus turned her into the international superstar she is today.
She never paid him a fix salary even though he’d been instrumental in the building of the brand Shakira, and he thought the time was now to make up for lost wages.
In response, Shakira argued that de la Rua had never been in charge of her career either in an official or unofficial capacity, so he had no right to claim a share of her money.
A judge sided with her, E! News reports.
“In a fifteen page well-reasoned opinion the Swiss court dismissed all of Mr. de la Rua's claims that he was entitled to any participation in Shakira's past, current or future business, brand or assets, including future income,” Shakira’s attorney, Ezequiel Camerini, tells the publication.
Shakira’s other business partners testified in an affidavit that “the parties never had the intention to form a partnership or joint venture,” thus confirming the singer’s words.
Moreover, Shakira and de la Rua had taken steps to ensure they would never end in the situation they are today, singing “a prenuptial-type agreement applicable to unmarried couples [in which they] expressly manifested their wish to conserve, each separately, the totality of their past, current and future assets,” the attorney explains.
In other words, all along, de la Rua had been lying and making claims he knew he could never back up because he had already signed on the dotted line on the “pre-nup.”