Jennifer Lopez may have recorded an album called This Is Me…Then, but she's not interested in what her ex has to say about the matter.
Rather than let the case play out in court, the "Jenny from the Block" singer is pushing to enter arbitration with her first ex-husband, Ojani Noa, to stop him from publishing a tell-all book about their relationship, according to court documents filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Per the filing, Noa is bound to arbitration based on the settlement he and Lopez arrived at in October 2005, when he sued her for breach of contract after she fired him in 2002 from a managerial post at her Pasadena restaurant Madre's. Their agreement called for, among other things, Noa to remain mum in public about Lopez's private life. He also received $125,000 in the deal.
Noa is currently restrained from peddling his purportedly racy manuscript by a preliminary injunction that was issued June 30. It prevents him from profiting from any intimate Lopez details, disseminating private info about her by any means and criticizing her in public.
And the former waiter is none too happy about it. Despite that fact that Lopez's attorney, Paul Sorrell, has stated that his client could collect $10 million in damages if the book is published, Noa told the court earlier this month that he's sorry he didn't fight harder against the injunction and would prefer to go to trial.
"I didn't agree to it," Noa told L.A. Superior Court Judge Victor Person on Dec. 1. "My lawyer told me that it was the right thing to do, and I went along with it." The 31-year-old is currently without legal representation after reportedly finding out that his former counsel—who agreed in October to enter arbitration—wasn't a licensed attorney.
In an August email to his former missus' legal camp included in court documents, Noa wrote that he wouldn't back down. It's "not going to be that easy," he said. "I don't care anymore, I [have] nothing to lose at this point."
A hearing is set for Jan. 29 on Lopez's motion for arbitration and her request to put her breach of contract lawsuit against Noa on hold until after the pair have tried to work things out. Any settlement arrived at during arbitration would be legally binding. Noa has until the next court date to find a new attorney.
The Monster-in-Law star sued Noa Apr. 10 after he allegedly asked for $5 million in exchange for not publishing his book, which, according to the New York Post, was to be titled The Unknown Truth: A Passionate Portrait of a Serial Thriller.
Lopez tied the knot with the Cuban-born Noa on Feb. 22, 1997, shortly after meeting him at a Miami restaurant, where he worked as a waiter. Eleven months later, their union was kaput.