Karol G Had Her Best Friend Convinced She Was Ditching Tour for Love Island

Karol G is many things — record-breaker, Grammy winner, stadium-filler — but apparently she's also a deeply committed prankster with a gift for keeping a straight face under pressure. In a recent appearance on Elle's "Phoning It In" series, La Bichota dialed up her inner chaos agent and left her inner circle absolutely spinning.

The Setup Was Flawless

The premise of Elle's "Phoning It In" is delightfully simple: celebrities prank-call friends and family on speaker while the cameras capture every squirm and suppressed laugh. Karol jumped in with zero hesitation, freely admitting upfront that her team is basically a perpetual prank-testing ground. "They suffer a lot," she said — the energy of someone who has absolutely no plans to stop.

She made three calls across the episode: one to her manager Raymond Acosta, one to Becky G (who'll be joining her as a guest on the upcoming Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour), and one to her best friend Daiky Gamboa. That last call? Pure, unhinged comedy gold.

"I Said Yes" — The Moment Gamboa's World Fell Apart

Karol told Gamboa with complete earnestness that her team was reshuffling the entire tour because something "10 times better" had come up: a spot on Love Island. She played it perfectly — stressed voice, nervous energy, the whole theatrical package. According to Billboard, she even invoked a mysterious "Noah" who supposedly told her it would "take her career to the next level."

Gamboa, bless him, went full protective best-friend mode almost immediately. He pointed out, with genuine disbelief, that no celebrity at her level had ever touched a show like that. He compared it to La Casa de los Famosos. He said he was "in shock." And then Karol, cool as a Colombian breeze, dropped the line that broke him completely: "No, but I said yes."

The anguished delivery was so good that Gamboa's confusion escalated into something resembling actual alarm — right before Karol cracked, burst into laughter, and revealed the whole thing was a bit. His reaction was priceless: the specific energy of someone who genuinely cannot decide whether to be relieved or furious.

Meanwhile, the Real Tour Is Very Much Happening

For the record, no world tours were harmed in the making of this prank. The Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour is locked, loaded, and kicking off July 24 in Chicago across a massive 63-stadium run. And the lineup keeps growing — Venezuelan artist Elena Rose, Colombian singer Greeicy, and Becky G have all been confirmed as opening acts for select U.S. dates, making this one of the most stacked Latin tours of the year.

The tour is riding serious momentum from Tropicoqueta, Karol's fifth studio album, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart and cracked the all-genre Billboard 200 at No. 3. That alone would be a career-defining achievement, but Karol didn't stop there — she simultaneously shattered the record for a female artist by placing 20 songs on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart at the same time, with 18 of those being fresh debuts from the album. That's not a chart performance, that's a hostile takeover.

It's the kind of dominance that puts her in rarified company alongside today's most boundary-pushing artists — from Olivia Rodrigo launching her own all-women festival to BLACKPINK's Lisa gearing up for her second solo album, the era of artists fully owning their creative and cultural moment is in full swing. And few are doing it with as much flair — or as many pranks — as Karol G.

La Bichota, Unbothered and Undefeated

What the Elle segment really captures isn't just the joke itself, but something essential about who Karol G is when the stadium lights go down. She's playful, sharp, and completely at ease in her own orbit. She can make a best friend question reality for ninety seconds and then pivot seamlessly back to breaking Billboard records. The Love Island bit was fictional. The takeover very much is not.

Related on Ni4o: Justin Bieber Drops Surprise 'SWAG Live From Coachella' Album