Shakira walks into a luxurious upstairs suite at Miami Beach’s Villa Casa Casuarina — the former Versace mansion — wearing high-waisted jeans, a loose T-shirt and a baseball cap pushed low over her forehead, her hair pulled back in a tangle of dirty-blonde braids.

Far from cameras, her face is practically devoid of makeup save for mascara, and her eyes are wide over prominent cheekbones. Clear-skinned, barely over 5 feet tall in her sneakers, she looks young and almost fragile — a far cry from the powerful, wrathful woman she has played in her recent, hugely successful songs and music videos.

“I’m still in a reflective period,” she says pensively. “I’m still exorcising some demons. The last I have left,” she adds with a hearty laugh. Billboard Latin Music Week returns to Miami on Oct. 2-6. Shakira will participate in an exclusive superstar Q&A. Get tickets here. One of the most recognizable and celebrated stars on the planet, Shakira is also notoriously meticulous, a perfectionist known for leaving little to chance.

But in the past 14 months, the 46-year-old has thrown convention, expectations and her own personal brand of allure-driven celebrity to the wind following her infamous split from Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué, her partner of over a decade and the father of her two children, Milán, 10, and Sasha, 8.