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Creativity Quote by Shakira

"I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations"

About this Quote

Shakira’s statement reads less like a confession than a carefully engineered airlock: it lets the scandal out while keeping culpability from getting in. The first sentence, “I was unaware,” is the classic celebrity crisis move, but it’s doing real work here. It frames the controversy as a knowledge problem, not a values problem, positioning her as a good actor caught in a bad supply chain rather than a participant in exploitation.

Then comes the moral clause: “I would never knowingly…” That single adverb is the escape hatch. It asserts ethical intent while quietly acknowledging the possibility that she did, in fact, wear the clothes or back the company. The sentence performs virtue and limits liability at the same time. It’s an apology without the vulnerability of apology: no admission of harm, no mention of workers, no corrective action beyond personal disavowal.

The phrase “alleged wage and labor violations” adds another layer of insulation. “Alleged” is legal language, not emotional language; it signals caution, not solidarity. It also shifts focus from the material reality of labor abuse to the status of the claim, as if the primary issue is whether the accusation has cleared a procedural threshold.

Context matters: “the dispute in Brooklyn” suggests a localized flare-up (a protest, a pop-up, a retail partnership) intersecting with a global brand persona. Shakira is protecting a carefully cultivated image of warmth and authenticity from the cold machinery of fast fashion. The subtext is blunt: she wants to be seen as ethically aligned without being held responsible for the systems that make celebrity merchandising possible.

Quote Details

TopicHuman Rights
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Shakira. (2026, January 15). I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-unaware-of-the-dispute-in-brooklyn-i-would-169114/

Chicago Style
Shakira. "I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-unaware-of-the-dispute-in-brooklyn-i-would-169114/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-unaware-of-the-dispute-in-brooklyn-i-would-169114/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Unaware of Brooklyn dispute; would not support labor violations
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About the Author

Shakira

Shakira (born February 2, 1977) is a Musician from Colombia.

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