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In the early days of Jennifer Lopez’s fame, she and her husband, Ojani Noa, were a striking couple on red carpets. He wasn’t a fixture in her life for long, though. After less than a year, Lopez and Noa divorced. Over the years, Lopez has married three other people. Noa doesn’t believe she’ll ever be content to settle down with one partner.

Jennifer Lopez’s first husband thinks she’ll get married several more times

Years after his divorce from Lopez, Noa said he didn’t have high hopes for her relationship with then-husband Ben Affleck.

“I wish her and Ben the best, but I’m not convinced it will last,” he told the Daily Mail in 2022. “Jen loves being in love but she’s been engaged six times. Ben is husband number four. I was husband number one and she told me I was the love of her life. When we lay in bed on our wedding night, she said we would be together forever.”

Ojani Noa wears a pink shirt and gray jacket and stands with Jennifer Lopez, who wears a silver dress.
Ojani Noa and Jennifer Lopez | SGranitz/WireImage

Noa believed that the drive that brought Lopez success was a problem in her personal life.

“I think she’s someone who will be married seven or eight times,” he said. “I can’t see her ever settling down with one person. She pushes herself to constantly go forward in her professional life, which is why she’s had a three-decade career, but she also moves on in her private life.”

Jennifer Lopez’s first husband said he remained a part of her life after they divorced

Noa said he felt “burned” and “bruised” by the end of his relationship with Lopez. Still, they remained friends for a period of time after their divorce.

“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.’”

Noa worked as the manager of Lopez’s restaurant, Madres, but claimed he was unceremoniously let go in 2005.

She gave insight into the problems in their relationship

When Lopez and Noa were still married, she hinted at problems in their relationship. She has always been extremely focused on her career, which seemed to bother him. He didn’t like the attention her career brought her.

“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.’”

Jennifer Lopez stands with her husband Ojani Noa. He wears a red shirt and she wears a gray dress.
Ojani Noa and Jennifer Lopez | Albert L. Ortega/WireImage
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She believed he would be happy to give up the wealth her career brought them in order to be the primary breadwinner.

“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 said. “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.”