A film writer agreed today to give up more than 27 hours of home video footage of singer-actress Jennifer Lopez and her first husband, Ojani Noa, taken before, during and after their brief marriage.
A film writer agreed June 8, 2011 to give up more than 27 hours of home video footage of singer-actress Jennifer Lopez and her first husband, Ojani Noa, taken before, during and after their brief marriage. (2010 AP File Photo)
Ed Meyer and Mathew Panagiotis, an attorney for Lopez, announced the agreement during a hearing before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ann Jones.
Meyer said the footage is contained on a computer hard drive and represents all he possesses. He said after the hearing that Noa, who was not present, may have additional video.
Both Noa and Claudia Vazquez of Covina have proposed to make movies of the relationship between Noa and Lopez. Noa’s version would focus on his arrival from Cuba as a refugee and his eventual rendezvous with a Hollywood
star.
Vazquez says the project she wants to complete would be a “comedic parody of Noa’s life crafted nearly entirely from material that is already in the public domain.” She previously sued Lopez, alleging the singer/actress was
interfering with her ability to make the film.
Vazquez alleged that Meyer removed the data drive from her home.
On Monday, Jones issued a court order preventing Vazquez from selling the video without the actress’ permission, but the directive did not apply to Meyer.
Meyer said he and Vazquez are co-licensees of the home videos. He said his primary concern was that the videos be placed in the hands of a third party rather than directly handed over to Lopez’s attorneys.
Under the agreement, the footage will be kept in a bank safety deposit box. Lopez’s lawyers, however, will maintain the key to the box. Anyone wanting access to the footage will have to give the other side 24 hours notice that
they intend to seek a court order releasing the videos.
Lopez has her own lawsuit alleging invasion of privacy by Meyer and Noa. She obtained an injunction stopping them from distributing home videos from her first marriage and is appealing a judge’s ruling that her claim for damages should be taken before an arbitrator.
That injunction did not apply to Vazquez.
Lopez previously gave a sworn declaration stating her concerns about the videos.
“I believe that Noa’s and Meyer’s dissemination of private and intimate details about me, whether true or fabricated, and my alleged relationship with Noa and also their exploiting false and disparaging descriptions and lies about me are highly damaging to me and to my career in the entertainment industry,” Lopez says in her legal papers.
The actress, who has young twins with husband Marc Anthony, also maintains that making such private facts public is “continuing to cause me great distress and embarrassment.”
Noa’s alleged participation in the project has the potential to hurt her in many ways, she said.
“I believe that Noa will damage my reputation with movie producers and businesses which contract with celebrities for the use of their names, likenesses and spokesperson services for commercial endorsements and may very
well cause some members of the movie-going and record-buying public to think badly of me,” Lopez states.
Lopez married Noa in 1997 and divorced him 11 months later.
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