Singer Shakira, football star Gerard Pique welcome baby
January 23, 2013 by Reuters
This June 21, 2011 file photo shows Colombian singer Shakira with her boyfriend FC Barcelona Gerard Pique, left, during a plenary session at the President’s Conference in Jerusalem. — AP Photo
Singer Shakira gave birth to her first child, a boy, on Tuesday in Barcelona, the Colombian pop star said on her website.
The “Hips Don’t Lie” singer and her boyfriend, the Spanish football player Gerard Pique, named the six-pound, six-ounce (three kilograms) boy Milan.
“Milan (pronounced MEE-lahn) means dear, loving and gracious in Slavic; in Ancient Roman, eager and laborious, and in Sanskrit, unification,” the star said in a statement posted on her website.
“Just like his father, baby Milan became a member of FC Barcelona at birth,” the couple joked in a statement. Pique is a defender for Spanish La Liga runner-up FC Barcelona.
Shakira, 35, announced her pregnancy in September after bowing out of a performance in Las Vegas.
The couple last week asked fans to donate gifts such as mosquito nets and vaccines to help needy children in an online baby shower. Shakira is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
Shakira has signed on to be a judge on the upcoming season of the hit singing contest “The Voice,” which is broadcast by US network NBC. She and R&B singer Usher will replace judges Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.
The singer fist met Pique, 25, in 2010, but only confirmed that they had been in a relationship in March 2011.
