Pop star Shakira lends her voice to an animated gazelle in the new Disney movie Zootopia but she insisted her character still be a good role model.

Speaking at the world premiere of the film, the Hips Don’t Lie singer said she told the film’s directors the character was too slim and asked for her to be given bigger hips.

The mother-of-two said: “I love that she is opinionated and she cares about her people she feels she has a social responsibility, I feel like her and I have a common denominator, when the directors told me about her I said: “That is me” but she was too slim so I asked them to give her more curves and put more meat on the bones. She needs bigger hips so she has them now.”

Shakira said she could also relate to Gazelle’s sense of conscience: “She knows that she has an impact on the people who follow her and listen to her and that is something I’m aware of, I think all public figures have a social responsibility.”

The singer has spent her fair share of time in recording booths, but said she found the voice process very different to recording music: “It’s very different, it’s a process in which you have certain creative licence but different to the kind you have as a performer.

“I thought they were going to animate before I recorded the voice but it was the opposite, they recorded my voice to capture the emotions of the scene and then animated the character to my voice to reproduce the expressions. It was interesting for me.”

Zootopia is released in UK cinemas on February 26.