Shakira says the tax fraud allegations made against her are "false."
The 45-year-old pop star is being accused of fraud and faces up to eight years in prison after allegedly racking up six separate counts of tax fraud totalling 12.2 million, but has decided to fight the allegations and insisted that she did not spend more than 183 days in the country, which would lead the Spanish government to count her as an official citizen.
She said: "I have to fight for what I believe; because these are false accusations. First of all, I didn’t spend 183 days per year at that time at all. I was busy fulfilling my professional commitments around the world. Second, I’ve paid everything they claimed I owed, even before they filed a lawsuit. So as of today, I owe zero to them. And finally, I was advised by one of the four biggest tax specialist firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers, so I was confident that I was doing things correctly and transparently from day one."
The 'Objection' hitmaker - who is also facing a fine of 19.2 million - went on to describe the claims made by the Spanish government as "fictitious" and claimed that the authorities often do this to celebrities as well as the "regular taxpayer."
She told ELLE: "However, even without evidence to support these fictional claims, as they usually do, they’ve resorted to a salacious press campaign to try to sway people, and apply pressure in the media along with the threat of reputational damage in order to coerce settlement...
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