Jennifer Lopez and Her Husband Tried to ‘Fake’ a Perfect Relationship, but Oprah Saw Through It

Jennifer Lopez and her first husband, Ojani Noa, were married for less than a year. While they fell for each other quickly, they ran into problems almost immediately after tying the knot. According to Noa, Lopez tried to keep these issues under wraps. When the couple interviewed with Oprah Winfrey, though, she asked them directly about their problems.

Jennifer Lopez and her first husband tried to avoid talking about their problems with Oprah Winfrey

After he married Lopez, Noa admitted that he began to feel as though his “whole life became a lie.” He struggled to keep up with her rapidly accelerating career success and began to feel increasingly distant from her.

“She went from Jen to being J Lo, this big business bringing in millions,” he told the Daily Mail. “She had all these new people around her, all wanting to make money off her. I would call and an assistant would say, ‘Sorry, she’s not available.’”

Noa claimed Lopez’s team encouraged him to “fake it” when they appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Still, he said Oprah was well aware of their marital problems.

“Oprah knew we were having problems,” he said. “I was sitting in the audience and thought Oprah would come to me because we had talked about it beforehand.”

In Noa’s eyes, Lopez did not truthfully answer Oprah’s question about their marriage.

“Oprah said to Jen, ‘I hear you guys are having problems,’” he recalled. “With that beautiful face and that beautiful smile, Jen said, ‘No, everything is amazing,’ or something like that.”

He admitted he grappled with jealousy while they were together

Noa admitted that many of their problems had roots in his own jealousy. He didn’t like seeing her with male collaborators like Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“I rang Jen and asked why she was going out with him on dates and she said, ‘It’s just business. This is what I’m being told I have to do,’” he said. “I was jealous and would scream, ‘But you are married!’”

Lopez believed his bigger issue was with her career. He enjoyed their wealth, but he wanted to be the one bringing it in. Lopez thought that on some level, he wished she could give up her career.

“I have to say, if you asked him right now, he’d rather have me home washing dishes, with us living in a small apartment, with him making the money rather than me making millions of dollars a year, living in a house that I mostly pay for,” she told Movieline in 1998. “It’s tough for me to try and show him that even though I make a lot of money, I feel I still need him.”

Jennifer Lopez’s first husband said they remained friendly after their divorce

After less than a year of marriage, Lopez and Noa divorced in 1998. He said they remained friendly after finalizing their divorce. When she opened her restaurant, Madre’s, in 2002, she asked him to manage it.

“There were times she told me she wanted to get back together,” he said. “In quiet moments she would say, ‘I need you in my life. I don’t want to lose you.’”

Just six months into his job at Madre’s, though, the restaurant fired him. He sued for unfair dismissal in 2004. In 2007, Lopez hit him with a lawsuit for attempting to publish a tell-all book about their relationship.