Columbia’s second-biggest export Shakira just as addictive as the first, and has amassed a huge fortune over a lifetime of performing. She’s not just a pretty face and impossible abs, though, this is one serious lady. Tiny, at just 4’11”, Shakira’s large personality is overshadowed only by a warm heart and strong backbone. She is seen as a heroine in her native Columbia, financing four schools and running the charity Pies Descalzos (The Barefoot Foundation), which she founded when she was just 19.

At the age of 10 she entered a talent contest on a local TV station, came first and won a bicycle and that was it. She knew this was what she wanted to do. Perform not cycle.

When she was 13, she was in a hotel in her home town of Barranquilla and thrust a demo tape on an unsuspecting Sony exec. He liked what he heard and eventually gave her a three-record deal. The first two flopped but she was determined to succeed. As she told The Telegraph:

‘I tried to give my career a shot from Barranquilla, but the musicians would never show up. It was just not taken seriously.’ She persuaded her mother to move with her to the capital, Bogotá, where she found a role in a popular soap (‘I was terrible,’ she says, chortling). But an award for ‘best rear on television’, given by a listings magazine, was not enough to satisfy Shakira’s ambition. Then Sony announced it would drop her unless the sales of her next album improved dramatically.

‘Imagine the pressure! But I work best that way and basically I did my first really good album.’ Aware that talent does not necessarily equal sales, Shakira promoted it all over Latin America. ‘I promise you I went to every single radio station with that album under my arm.’

It worked and the album was a huge success. Never content to sit on her laurels, Shakira decided it was time to try the English-speaking market. The fact that she didn’t speak a word of it didn’t matter. She thought herself and wrote all of the songs herself.

I knew I had to jump into a pool of cold water without even knowing how to swim, and I learnt. Songwriting is such an intricate part of me as an artist and as a person; I couldn’t just let someone else do it [write the songs].

The result was a huge success and catapulted her into the big-time internationally as well as in the Latin-speaking countries. She is now the fourth-richest female singer in the world (after Madonna, Barbra Streisand and Céline Dion) and there seems no stopping her.

However, that ‘oh my god, those hips!’ image is just; an image.

When they watch my videos, people think that I’m a very sexually aggressive person, but I am completely the opposite. I’m not as self-confident as it seems when I’m on the stage. I have lots of insecurities; I am actually very shy.

How can a person who can do that with her body be shy? Insecurities apparently.

I need attention. That’s bad, I know. I’ve got to learn the positive side of fame. It’s got a really gentle, kind side that gives some reasoning to my own life — the opportunity to communicate. That’s why I consider myself very oral. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have that possibility. The opportunity to help people, as well.

And help people she does. In 2003 she became the youngest ever Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

In Colombia there are over 3m kids who don’t even go to school. Some think pop stars are made to entertain, period. I don’t see it that way. I think all young people have to be politically outspoken.

As  well as Pies Descalzos and UNICEF, she is involved in ALAS - América Latina en Acción Solidaria (Latin America in Solidarity Action), the  Global Campaign for Education, Live Earth, the ONE Campaign and the Treatment Action Campaign for treatment for people with HIV.

Busy lady. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s much more to this wee lady that hips that don’t lie and boobies that are smaller than mountains.

Here are said hips (and an odd line in head gear):

And you thought your time of the month was a pain:

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