Jennifer Lopez wears a tan dress and black elbow length gloves. She stands with one hand on her hip.

Jennifer Lopez’s ex, Ojani Noa, married her in 1997 and was single by 1998. Though their relationship was brief, he got to know her family well. Noa liked Lopez’s father and saw that her mother pushed her hard to succeed. He also witnessed the frequent clashes between mother and daughter. While Noa did not like to see them fight, he thought Lopez relished the drama.

Jennifer Lopez’s ex said she seemed to enjoy drama in her life

When Noa met Lopez, her career was on the rise and she grew more successful as time passed. Noa liked that through all this, she stayed in touch with her roots.

“She talked about her childhood in the Bronx,” he told the Daily Mail. “She loves her dad, David. He’s such a good, sweet guy. Her mum, Guadalupe, is the tough one. She pushed Jen to succeed.”

Jennifer Lopez and her first husband, Ojani Noa, stand together and look to the side. He wears a red shirt and she wears a silver dress.Ojani Noa and Jennifer Lopez | Albert L. Ortega/WireImage

Noa witnessed major arguments between Lopez and her mother. He didn’t like to see them fight, but he began to think that Lopez liked this kind of drama in her interpersonal relationships.

“She loves her mum and Lupe is very proud of her, but I thought the relationship was toxic,” he said. “Lupe would scream at her. I didn’t like it. Looking back now, I sometimes think maybe Jen enjoyed the drama.”

Jennifer Lopez’s ex believed her mother’s approval was the key to a successful relationship

After Noa proposed to Lopez, her clashes with her mother grew more heated. The couple wanted to have their wedding in Miami, and Lopez’s mother hoped they would hold the ceremony in the Bronx. When he tried to stand up for his future wife, Noa found himself on her mother’s bad side.

“Jen would be in tears all the time. Her mum was calling and yelling at her, trying to get her to change the venue,” he said. “So I called Lupe and said, ‘You need to stop this.’ That was a big mistake. From then on there was tension between me and Lupe.”

Noa believed Lopez’s relationships would only survive if her partner had her mother’s approval.

“If Ben [Affleck] has Lupe on [his] side then maybe he’s got a chance,” Noa said shortly after the couple married in 2022.

She stopped speaking to her mother for a time

In the years before Lopez met Noa, her relationship with her mother was on even rockier ground. When Lopez told her parents she wanted to leave college to pursue dance full-time, her mother was not happy.

“My mom and I butted heads,” Lopez told W Magazine in 2013. “I didn’t want to go to college — I wanted to try dance full-time. So she and I had a break.”

Jennifer Lopez wears a white dress and leans into her mom, who wears black. They both sit at a table.Jennifer Lopez and her mother | KMazur/WireImage
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According to Lopez, they went months without speaking. She moved out of her family home and slept on the couch in her dance studio.

“I started sleeping on the sofa in the dance studio,” she said. “I was homeless, but I told her, ‘This is what I have to do.’ A few months later, I landed a job dancing in Europe. When I got back, I booked In Living Color. I became a Fly Girl and moved to L.A. It all happened in a year.”

Eventually, Lopez broke the ice by buying her mother tickets to see Barry Manilow on Mother’s Day.