Celebrity News

Court fight bankrupts Jennifer Lopez’s ex-husband

Jennifer Lopez‘s ex-husband, Ojani Noa, is filing for bankruptcy, claiming the legal battle over the couple’s private home videos has left him broke and depressed.

Lopez filed a $10 million suit against Noa in November and obtained court orders to prevent him from using the home videos — including footage from their honeymoon — for a movie he was producing on his life.

“The lawsuit put me through so much pain and frustration,” Noa told Page Six. “I’m losing everything.” Noa hoped that, by declaring bankruptcy, he could sell the tapes, along with his car and personal belongings, at a public auction.

PHOTOS: JENNIFER LOPEZ

But Lopez’s lawyer, John Lavely, told us the tapes can’t be sold: “Both the preliminary injunction and the permanent injunction are still in full force and effect. Offering for sale or selling the videotape would constitute a willful violation.”

The tapes show J.Lo soon after their 1997 marriage which ended a year later. Noa and his business partner, Ed Meyer, say there’s nothing sexual or graphic in them. At their raciest, Meyer said, they show Lopez playfully kissing a woman and doing a lap dance.

Noa said his planned movie is on hold because potential backers “are now afraid to invest in the project because of what’s happened. As the lawsuit went deeper and deeper, they said, let’s back up and see how this situation gets resolved.”

The home videos aren’t needed by Noa to move forward with the movie, he says: “The movie is not dead. It’s my story. It’s me in Miami. It’s a love story.”

In 2007, Noa was ordered to pay Lopez $545,000 when he tried to publish a tell-all book, claiming it violated a confidentiality agreement the couple had previously reached. Noa said the litigation with Lopez has crippled his modeling and acting career.

“I can’t go to work because anytime I go to a casting, people are afraid to hire me because of the judgment on my head. [They are] skeptical [because] of what I’m going through,” he said.