Ladies with claws are popular.
Earlier this month, actress Demi Moore declared herself a puma. And on Shakira’s new record, “She Wolf,” out today, the sexy Colombian chanteuse says she’s possessed by the spirit of the title animal — loba in Spanish.
Speaking to The Post during a rehearsal break for her 2010 world tour, the petite blond singer was warm and vivacious, hardly a beastie girl from the deep woods.
She says she titled her album “She Wolf” because the wolf is “the symbol that represents the woman of our times.” We all know how sharp the wolf’s teeth are — but Shakira laughs off the threat, saying, “I’m totally harmless.”
Perhaps.
“The she-wolf is a woman who knows what she wants and is able to go after her dreams,” says Shakira. “She’s in touch with her deepest desires. In every woman, there is an animalistic, primal, instinctive nature that is sometimes irrational. There is a she-wolf in me.”
Shakira is 32 and has made music and danced all her life. She recalls her very first performance was an impromptu dance on top of a table at a Middle Eastern restaurant to the beat of the doumbek, a traditional Arab drum used to accompany belly dancers. Since then, she’s written and released six studio albums and become a global star.
Still, she admits she didn’t really know freedom until recently.
“I lived in a gilded cage that I built myself,” she says.
“I was always trying to please the desires of others, and I didn’t listen to my inner self. Nobody noticed that I was being suffocated.”
Shakira’s metamorphosis came in part with her incredible wealth and fame — but it’s also due to self-examination.
“I learned to rid myself of guilt and punishment,” she says. “I was my own worst enemy because I repressed myself. Life is too brief to be that way. Now I feel like the owner of my life.”
She’s not just talking the talk. Shakira is as popular in Latin America as she is here, but that world remains a bastion where machismo is near the core of a culture where women are defined by their men. Shakira’s relationship with boyfriend Antonio de la Rua steps outside of convention in the Latin world. They are a couple in love — and yet they remain unmarried after nearly a decade together.
“It might seem like I’m rebelling, but I just don’t want to submit myself to the old rules,” she says.
“The world has changed and we live in a new order. Antonio and I have reflected on the subject [of marriage] many times. When we met I was 23 and he was 26, and of course I dreamt of a white gown and walking down the aisle. It was the dream of a girl.
“Now I dream about other things,” she says. “I dream about growing old next to him and about having kids together.” While she hasn’t ruled out a formal wedding, she seems to enjoy her relationship just as it is.
Shakira says the ideal society for lobos y lobas — wolves and she-wolves — is one where “we live as free as possible without hurting anyone. I respect everyone’s liberties and defend my own.”
Spoken like a true she-wolf.
dan.aquilante@nypost.com