The soft guitar strums that open “La Perla” offer a contrast to the unapologetic lyrics that open the Lux standout. “Hello, peace stealer,” Rosalía sings, almost coyly, pointing to her target from the first line.
The string orchestra builds as Rosalía sings to a former lover — “a playboy,” “a narcissist,” “an enchanter” — who “spends money he has and doesn’t have,” and takes first place on the “podium of disillusion,” who’s earned a “monument to dishonesty.”
“The local disappointment, a national heartbreaker / An emotional terrorist, the biggest disaster in the world,” she sings. “He’s a pearl, no one trusts him / He’s a pearl, one to be very careful with.”
But who is the song about?
There seem to be two real possibilities for who “La Perla” might be about — but most fans think it’s Rauw Alejandro, the Puerto Rican heartthrob and reggaeton star, whom Rosalía dated from 2021 through 2023. Together, they released a collaborative project titled RR inspired by their love, and Rosalía even got a tattoo of his first name under her left breast. (She references the tattoo on “Focu ‘Ranni,” another Lux track, singing, “I have your name on my ribs, but your initials were never on my heart.”)
The breakup was chronicled all over the media and tabloids, and full of public displays and musical antics. Shortly after the breakup, Alejandro released a song titled “Hayami Hana” on which he insisted that infidelity was never the reason for their split, and poured out compliments for Rosalía. And then there was the 2023 Latin Grammys a few months later, where he took the stage — in Rosalía’s home country of Spain, no less — to perform a cover of Laura Pausini’s heartbreak song “Se Fue,” which compares the end of a relationship to a powerful storm that ruined him. “Her fairytale smile is gone / The sweet honey I tasted on her lips is gone,” he sang.
But back to Rosalía’s “La Perla:: “After a powerful verse from Yahritza y Su Esencia‘s Yahritza about this mystery man’s need for a psychiatrist, Rosalía joins with a sing-songy, spoken line where she describes how her narcissistic ex would see being called an icon as a “reductionist narrative.” She then sings, “Loyalty and faithfulness/Are a language he’ll never understand/His masterpiece, his collection of bras.” Aside from Rauw Alejandro’s bra-catching skills at concerts, the reggaetonero even has a song with Daddy Yankee titled “Panties y Brasieres” on his album Saturno.
Rauw may be the obvious answer, but if you ask any Rosalía love-life connoisseur, the other possible subject of the song could be The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White. The two of them sparked dating rumors after being spotted together in the year following her breakup with Alejandro. White wore a rose brooch at the Critics’ Choice Awards in January 2024, which many fans took as a nod to the singer. However, they seemed to split later in the year as Allen retreated from public view to play Bruce Springsteen in the biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere. We have no information about White’s bra collection, though.
