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\n\tRosal\u00eda, one of the world\u2019s most popular singers, apologized after wading into an age-old debate surrounding Pablo Picasso, whose work she initially praised before admitting she didn\u2019t know enough about his biography.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe controversy kicked off after the Spanish singer appeared on a Spotify podcast with the Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez, who is best known for her novel Our Share of Night<\/em>. \u201cI really like Picasso and I\u2019ve never bothered to differentiate the artist from the work,\u201d Rosal\u00eda said on an episode posted on March 3. \u201cMaybe I wouldn\u2019t have liked him as much for the things I\u2019ve been told, but who knows, maybe I would have. I don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care, I enjoy his work.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis weekend, however, Rosal\u00eda sounded a different note about the artist. In a TikTok, she was \u201cnot at peace with what I said about Picasso.\u201d Moreover, she said, \u201cIt is important not to talk about certain topics when you do not have all the knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRosal\u00eda was presumably referring to Picasso\u2019s well-documented history of having physically and emotionally abused women he courted as lovers. In a famed memoir, Fran\u00e7oise Gilot, an artist in her own right, recounted that Picasso treated women like \u201cgoddesses and doormats,\u201d and claimed that, at one point in their decade-long romantic relationship, he even threatened to throw her off a bridge. She also said that Picasso frequently pitted her against other women and that he cheated on her.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, Dora Maar, a photographer affiliated with the Surrealist movement whom Picasso memorialized in his \u201cWeeping Woman\u201d paintings, also said that the artist abused her. And Picasso began seeing another one of his paramours, Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Walter, when she was just 17 years old. All of these women\u2019s stories figure in Sue Roe\u2019s recent book Hidden Portraits: Six Women Who Shaped Picasso\u2019s Life<\/em>, among other tomes on the subject.<\/p>\n