Strange Things About Gerard Piqué And Clara Chia Marti's Relationship

Gerard Piqué's split from Shakira in June 2022 caught everyone by surprise as she had been praising him on social media just two months earlier. But surprise turned into shock — and amusement — when details started emerging. The media couldn't get enough — and Shakira added fuel to the fire. The pop icon generously detailed the breakup in songs released in the months that followed. "You left me my mother-in-law as my neighbor / Media outlets at my door and in debt with the government," Shakira dished in "BZRP Music Session #53", referencing her tax fraud case in Spain.

Piqué also did his part in piquing our interest by moving on fast. Just two months after ending his decade-plus relationship with the mother of his sons, the former Barcelona defender was photographed packing on the PDA with Clara Chia Marti at a music festival in his native Catalonia, the Daily Mail reported in August 2022. A week later, Marti was Piqué's plus-one at a wedding, suggesting the relationship was already pretty serious.

Piqué and Marti continued to be seen together through the end of the year, being caught on camera in Paris and Prague. In January 2023, Piqué made her relationship with Marti Instagram official by uploading a selfie of the two. But other than a second selfie shared in May, Piqué seems to keep his relationship with Marti off social media. Despite his efforts to keep his life private, Piqué hasn't been able to hide the strange side of his relationship.

Shakira's fans raised their collective eyebrows when Gerard Piqué started dating Clara Chia Marti so soon after the split, and their suspicions continued to grow in the months that followed. Later in 2022, Spanish media speculated that Shakira found out Piqué was cheating when she returned home from a work trip to find her strawberry jam half eaten, SheKnows reported. The problem was the athlete never ate processed sugar, so Shakira knew her jam should've been intact.

When the rumor surfaced, fans dug up a May 2022 interview Shakira gave on "This Morning" which they believed confirmed the theory. Shakira was discussing the music video for "Te Felicito," which shows her looking for Rauw Alejandro's robot-like body around the house only to find his head in the fridge. The interviewer asked why she went digging in the refrigerator, of all places. "To find out the truth," the "Hips Don't Lie" singer said.

It's unclear when Piqué's relationship started, but a source told The U.K. Sun in August 2022 they had "been seeing each other for months." Indeed, it may have been more than a year. Amid news of the cheating allegations, fans unearthed an August 2021 Zoom interview that seemingly showed Marti in the house he shared with Shakira, Page Six reported. Shakira was reportedly caught by surprise. "It's devastating for her to learn that this affair had been going on for a lot longer than she imagined," a source said.

Gerard Piqué and Clara Chia Marti wasted no time in taking their relationship to the next level. While Piqué and Marti are said to have been living together for a while, he more recently moved her into the mansion Shakira lived in when she first moved to Barcelona to be with him, The U.S. Sun reported in August. Piqué and Marti lived in his apartment in the Barcelona city center. The house they're said to have moved into is located in Cambrils, a coastal town about an hour and a half south of Barcelona. 

It was in the Cambrils house that Shakira and Piqué welcomed their first child named Milan in early 2013. "It was in 2012, the images of the pregnancy and going to the hospital were in that house," journalist Pepe del Real told a Spanish outlet. In 2013, Shakira shared snippets of the house while posting pictures of Milan to Instagram. "I swore I would never do this and now I am one of those annoying moms showing pics of her baby!" she shared that April, posting a close-up of her son's face in a photo featuring a kitchen in the background.

According to the source, the 2010 World Cup winner and his girlfriend opted to move away from Barcelona to protect their relationship. "It's quite secure, it's not next to the sea but it does have a lot of privacy," del Real said.

Gerard Piqué went from one side of the age-gap discussion to the other. Sharing the same birthday, Shakira is exactly 10 years older than Piqué. Clara Chia Marti, on the other hand, is 12 years younger. In April, the retired soccer star, then 36, celebrated his girlfriend's 24th birthday during an Abu Dhabi getaway, the Daily Mail reported. The age difference didn't go unnoticed by Shakira. "I'm worth two 22-year-olds / You traded in a Ferrari for a Twingo / You traded in a Rolex for a Casio," her "BZRP Music Session #53" song reads.

For obvious reasons, the age difference bothers Piqué a lot less than it does his ex. Piqué is even said to be cherishing the youthfulness Marti has brought to his life. "I feel younger," he reportedly said, a source told Caras magazine. Marti is also helping Piqué look his best by aiding with his fashion choices. "The truth is I go with my girlfriend to the shops and she buys them for me. I'm a puppet," he said in a February interview with a Spanish streamer, Page Six reported.

In addition to being much younger than Piqué, Marti is also his subordinate. After Piqué met Marti at a club where she worked as a bartender, he got her — who was then a PR student — a job at the PR department of Kosmos, his sports production company, People en Español reported in January.

After Shakira and Gerard Piqué split, their sons moved to Florida with their mom. Shakira got full custody of Milan and Sasha as part of a custody agreement signed in November 2022, which established he could get the children for 10 days a month and some holidays, the Daily Mail reported. But the boys laid out some rules regarding the time they'll spend with their dad — they want him to fly to Miami alone.

Milan and Sasha have no interest in meeting Clara Chia Marti, journalist Jordi Martin said on a Spanish TV program, as Hola! reported. "One condition that the children imposed on Gerard Piqué was that he visit them in Miami without his girlfriend," he said. "The kids don't want to see Clara." Martin contended that the children said: "Please, we don't want to be with her in the 10 days that you spend in Miami." But the boys aren't the only ones interested in this arrangement.

Shakira is reportedly also taking steps to ensure Marti comes nowhere near her sons. "Shakira's team will try to ensure that Chia Marti does not travel to the United States and cannot enjoy her time with Gerard, Milan, and Sasha," Spain's OK Diario reported, according to Univision. She may have succeeded too, as Spanish reports contended Marti has to leave her home when Milan and Sasha are in Spain visiting their dad — though this version has been contested, Hola! reported.