Jennifer Lopez’s 1st Husband Lost 40 Pounds From the Stress of Their Marriage

In 1998, Jennifer Lopez and her first husband, Ojani Noa, divorced after just a year of marriage. They had faced problems from the start, with Noa feeling threatened by Lopez’s career success. He admitted he was also jealous that her work put her in close contact with male celebrities. He said that the stress of trying to make their relationship work led to major weight loss.

Jennifer Lopez’s husband said he lost weight from stressing about their relationship

While Noa said he fell in love with Lopez shortly after meeting her, their relationship soon faced problems. Her career was on a sharp upward trajectory, leaving her less time for him.

“She went from Jen to being J Lo, this big business bringing in millions,” he told the Daily Mail in 2022. “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.’”

He said that their plans for the future also shifted.

“We wanted kids, we discussed having kids,” he said. “Then she told me she couldn’t have a baby because it would interfere with her career.”

In public, Lopez spoke about how good their marriage was, which made Noa feel like his “whole life became a lie.” He said he lost 40 pounds from the stress of the situation.

She said his jealousy became an issue

Noa admitted that jealousy began to plague him during the marriage. He did not like seeing Lopez 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 also recognized that his jealousy was a problem.

“It’s hard for me to find normal contemporaries and it’s hard for men to deal with,” she told Movieline in 1998. “The man I’ve married is Latin and they, more than any other type of man, are very macho. I always joke with him, because he’s like, ‘You can see through that dress!’ or ‘Is there going to be a love scene in that next movie? You’re my wife. I don’t want anybody to think of you in that way.’”

She believed that, deep down, he would have liked her to give up her career so he could provide for her.

Jennifer Lopez said she didn’t think she and her husband gave the marriage a fair shot

While Lopez said she loved Noa, she didn’t think they ever had a chance of making it in the long term.

“It was nice — a love-at-first-sight situation,” she told Rolling Stone in 2001. “We got married. He was young, twenty-one, and I was twenty-five. It was premature, I guess. I don’t think we had a fair shot as far as where we both were in life.”

Through the relationship, she realized love wasn’t the only thing that kept a marriage alive.

“It wasn’t for a lack of love — that was genuine,” she said. “Sometimes things just don’t work out. But it did make me realize that love isn’t the only thing that makes a marriage work — it’s also about compromise, sacrifice, and understanding.”