Rosalia Hit with €600k Fine for Promoting Album in Madrid Without Permission

Singer Rosalia is facing a €600k fine after failing to seek permission to promote her new album in Madrid. 

The star caused a traffic gridlock on Monday night after announcing live on TikTok she was heading to central Madrid square Callao for a ‘surprise’ ahead of the presentation of the LUX front cover on a giant screen.

The 33-year-old, who briefly dated Jeremy Allen White following the end of her engagement to Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Rauw Alejandro, ended up having to abandon the car she was in as she streamed her preparations and sprint to a nearby hotel where she greeted rapturous fans from a window above them.

On Tuesday, Madrid’s Deputy Mayor Inma Sanz confirmed city hall officials were investigating whether the Catalan artist had permission to stage the event. 

She said: ‘ It doesn’t appear there was a specific authorisation and if there wasn’t action will be taken accordingly.’

Borja Carabante, Second deputy mayor and Councillor for Mobility also weighed into the furore, saying: ‘In principle, I am not aware of any permit being requested in the Mobility department.

‘We are checking all the citizen service offices to see if this event was reported.

‘In principle, we are not aware of it, and if we confirm that no request was made, disciplinary proceedings will be initiated, which may result in a penalty for holding an event on public roads without authorisation.’

Later that afternoon, Madrid police described what had happened in Callao as ‘spontaneous’ and said they had been having to follow social media to keep tabs on what was happening in the absence of any official information.

City hall chiefs followed up their comments soon afterwards by confirming to Spanish media Rosalia and her team had not requested any permission to present her album in central Madrid.

It was not immediately clear if council bosses would sanction the singer and what the size of any fine could end up being.

Respected Spanish news website El Confidential is claiming it could be up to 600,000 euros (£520,000), although city hall sources have played down the possibility of the toughest sanction possible if they end up opening disciplinary proceedings against Rosalia.

Lawyer Bea de Vicente told a Spanish TV programme reporting on the story: ‘We’re not talking here about something that was spontaneous but something that was arranged beforehand.

‘Rosalia was promoting something with commercial and profit objectives in mind.

‘The use of public land has to be regulated and anyone who wants to use it for profit has to ask for permission and hand over details of where they want to do it, pay to do so and take out insurance.

‘With all my respects to Rosalia, you can’t hold a promotional event in the centre of a city without doing these things first.’

In August, it emerged the Balearic Islands regional government had fined the producer of Katy Perry’s controversial ‘Lifetimes’ videoclip on protected dunes on the isle of S’Espalmador off Ibiza.

It had announced an investigation into the singer a year earlier when scenes from the music video first came out.

A label spokesperson for Perry said at the time the local video production company used ‘had assured us all necessary permits for the video were secured’ and they had ‘verbal authority’ to go ahead.

Bjork and London Symphonic Orchestra feature on Rosalia’s fourth album LUX, which was also presented in Times Square and comes out on November 7.

Her 2022 album Motomami became Spain’s best-selling record of the year and achieved multi-platinum status in a number of other countries around the world.