Is it so serious to call someone a “pearl”? For Rosalía’s Argentine fandom, yes. Her fans on the other side of the pond have turned against her after she liked and republished a video by Mia Khalifa in which she celebrates Argentina’s defeat in the World Cup. Thus, an entire country has considered that the artist has joined “the campaign of hatred against Argentines.”
“What life sounds like now that the Pearls have been defeated,” reads the middle of the video posted by Khalifa. In the background, ‘La Perla’, of course. If one thing is clear, it is that Rosalía runs her own social networks. No external manager would like and republish such a publication less than 10 days before the singer’s concerts at the Movistar Arena in Argentina. This has four dates scheduled, all sold out, on August 1, 2, 4 and 6.
Between images of Rosalía being labeled persona non grata in “the entire Argentine territory” with hundreds of thousands of visits or ticket refund guides with million-dollar views (the most shared exceeds 4 million in X), the singer has ended up withdrawing her interactions with Mia Khalifa’s post. However, his latest publication on Instagram has not been spared hundreds of Argentine comments with tens of thousands of likes: “The only pearl is you” or “Rauw Alejandro is a great guy” are some of them.
ROSALÍA PERSONA NO GRATA. Let it explode! pic.twitter.com/7ItT4h3I4Y
— Vulgarcite (@vulgarcite) July 21, 2026
The backlash has been so intense that even Clarín, the most read newspaper in Argentina, has published an article explaining to its readers how they can return their Rosalía tickets. Even the largest fan club in Argentina, with 134,000 followers on Instagram, has had to share a statement. This one is surprisingly sensible: “We believe that no opinion justifies attacks, assaults or harassment towards other people,” they say.
There are those who defend Rosalía, arguing that “she refers to Tokischa, her best friend, to herself and to everyone as a pearl,” but it is not surprising that this does not convince any fellow Argentinian. One might think that Rosalía didn’t even think for more than two seconds about republishing Mia Khalifa’s post: either she thought it was cool that the actress uploaded a video with her song, or she thought it was harmless and funny that she called the Argentines “pearls” after their embarrassing behavior in the World Cup final.
The reality is much more absurd. In a new Instagram story, Rosalía swears that “I hit share because ‘La Perla’ was playing and I didn’t even read what it said, my bad”: “I’m sorry,” the artist concludes. Be that as it may, she said it herself in her confessional: “We have all been a bit of a perlitos at some point.”
See this post on Instagram
