Jennifer Lopez's ex-husband wrote the book. Jennifer Lopez got the bonus.
An arbiter has awarded the actress-singer just under $545,000 in her legal battle over a tell-all tome reportedly penned by former Lopez spouse Ojani Noa, Lopez's attorney confirmed Wednesday.
Paul Sorrell said he couldn't comment on his star client's reaction to the decision, but added, "I think she'd just like to see this be over."
Noa did not immediately return a message left seeking comment.
Lopez sued Noa, the first of her three husbands, in 2006 after the New York Post reported the ex was making the publishing rounds with a Lopez-themed book proposal.
In Lopez's lawsuit, the actress claimed that Noa's book was full of the sort of stuff that sells books: Namely, sex. (View the legal documents.)
According to the Lopez camp, the literary Noa accused Lopez of partaking in "multiple duplicitous sexual affairs" during the making of her 1997 monster thriller Anaconda and of running around with future third husband Marc Anthony while she was linked to Sean "Diddy" Combs, and Anthony was married to beauty queen Dayanara Torres.
While Lopez might have accused Noa of being ungentlemanly, her lawsuit actually accused him of breaking a confidentiality clause in a 2005 settlement which itself arose from a 2004 lawsuit filed by Noa. (For those keeping score at home, Noa sued Lopez when he was fired from her Southern California restaurant, Madre's; Lopez settled the case for $125,000 and a pledge that Noa would refrain from blabbing about "intimate details" of her or their relationship.)
The arbiter's decision was handed down in April. It was only recently uncovered by a local Los Angeles wire service after Lopez's camp filed papers Aug. 6 seeking a confirmation of the ruling by the L.A. County Superior Court.
Of the exactly $544,814.21 awarded to Lopez by the arbiter, $200,000 was for damages and the rest for attorney and arbitration fees.
The Aug. 6 court filing notes that Noa has not challenged the arbitration ruling. The state of Noa's would-be book was unknown.
"We don't know what he's doing," Sorrell said. "He may be out there trying to exploit this thing."
But finding a venue to do the exploiting seemingly would be tough to impossible. In 2006, Lopez obtained a still-standing preliminary injunction barring Noa from broadcasting, publishing or otherwise making money off Lopez-related "intimate details."
Noa, 33, wed Lopez, 38, in 1997. The former waiter and the then rising superstar divorced a year later.
When asked if he believed Noa had the $544,814.21 to make good on the arbitration judgment, Sorrell said, "Your guess is as good as mine."