July 18, 2018 was a big day for the small northern Lebanese town of Tannourine: Shakira visited her grandmother’s birthplace. “I’m happy to be here,” said the Colombian pop star on site – and planted two cedars in the local nature reserve. They are the national symbol of Lebanon.
In honor of her visit, Mayor Bahaa Harb even ceremoniously named a place in the reserve after her: Shakira Isabel Mebarak Square.
The wooden sign in Tannourine has now faded. And Bahaa Harb, now deputy mayor, is disappointed; Shakira promised a donation to the reserve in front of a small group of official representatives. “She promised to give us $50,000,” Harb says. But she never sent the money.
The wooden sign honoring Shakira in Tannourine has now faded.
© Nina Breher
Just why? Shakira’s management left repeated inquiries from Tagesspiegel about the donation unanswered.
Shakira’s first new album in seven years, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” (“Women Don’t Cry Anymore”), will be released on Friday. The world tour for her last album “El Dorado” grossed $75 million.
The $50,000 donation would have supported the cedar reservation in the Lebanon, plagued by economic crisis and mismanagement can be put to good use. Part of it was intended to finance a solar system, and they also wanted to use the money to buy water tanks, as Bahaa Harb explains in a restaurant in the Lebanese capital Beirut at the end of January.
Bahaa Harb, deputy mayor of Tannourine (Lebanon), in a restaurant in Beirut.
© Nina Breher
The donation was a spontaneous idea from Shakira, says Harb. During her visit to Tannourine in 2018, she saw a statue that had been built in honor of another donor – and then suggested that Harb also donate. A statue of her grandmother should be erected as a thank you. Of the 50,000 US dollars promised, 10,000 were earmarked for the statue.
Shakira made headlines in November 2023 for tax evasion: before the district court in Barcelona, she confessed to having evaded 14.5 million euros in taxes in 2012 and 2014. She has to pay a fine of several million euros in Spain.
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When asked whether Shakira had declared a donation to the Lebanese nature reserve in Spain for tax purposes, the Spanish tax authority said that for legal reasons it could not provide information about individuals.
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Shakira has been involved in humanitarian work for years; it was only in May 2023 that she promised on Instagram to renovate a school in Colombia. In 2017, Shakira’s humanitarian work was recognized at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She supports the children’s aid organization UNICEF and founded a foundation that helps poor children in her country of origin, Colombia.
The Tannourine Nature Reserve is known for its cedars. They are the national symbol of Lebanon.
© IMAGO/Pond5 Images
It is not an isolated case that a pop star fails to pay a promised donation. For example, hip-hop star Wyclef Jean’s aid organization promised to donate $16 million after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, but only provided $5 million. Investigations subsequently uncovered financial irregularities at the now-closed foundation, the New York Times reported in 2012.
Amber Heard also declared in 2022 that she had not paid a $3.5 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union that she had promised as part of her divorce from Johnny Depp.
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Bahaa Harb says he never heard from Shakira again after the visit. He tried to contact her twice, without success. His cousin, who is the consul in the Lebanese embassy in Colombia, also tried it. “She just disappeared. I don’t think she’ll pay anymore.”
For Bahaa Harb the case is closed. “I won’t force them to pay.” And at least someone else has now donated at least for the water tanks. There’s just one thing he doesn’t understand: “She suggested it herself. She didn’t have to do that.”