Lopez charges USD 34 mn for American Idol

New York: Pop diva and actress Jennifer Lopez is reportedly closing in on a USD 34 million deal for her second stint as a judge on the hit show 'American Idol'. 

The 42-year-old star's return to the next season was doubtful after she asked for the hefty pay package - a steep increase from her USD 12 million remuneration for the previous season - to reappear alongside fellow panelists Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson on the talent show, reported Wall Street Journal online. 

But the deal seems to have been sorted out, as Frot-Coutaz, chief executive officer at FremantleMedia North America, which produces the series, said, "We're in good shape. No worries. No dark clouds on the horizon."

 

 

A spokesman for Lopez said "there is nothing to announce," and Fox declined to comment. 

Lopez and 'Aerosmith' frontman Tyler joined 'American Idol' after its star judge Simon Cowell left last year to start 'The X-Factor'.

Jennifer Lopez beats Anthony split blues by partying

Jennifer Lopez has chased away the blues caused by her recent split from husband Marc Anthony, by celebrating her 42nd birthday in Miami.

Lopez and her entourage of 16, which included her mother, sister, manager and stylist, enjoyed a lavish dinner at Scott Conant’s restaurant, Scarpetta, inside the Fontainebleau hotel

“Jennifer looked radiant in a purple and silver evening dress,” People magazine quoted a source as saying.

“And when they brought out her birthday cake after the meal, she began to sing. She was very happy. The whole group had a blast, staying for hours. They closed down the restaurant,” the source added.

Lopez and seven others had also enjoyed a pre-birthday dinner at the Wine Cellar of the Forge on Miami Beach.

J-Lo dumped husband hours before meeting Wills and Kate

It should have been the glittering highlight of their seven-year union. 

Multi-millionaire superstars Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were due to be guests of honour at the top table with Prince William and Kate at last weekend’s glittering Bafta gala in Hollywood.

Instead, J-Lo sashayed down the red carpet in a provocatively clinging green Pucci gown accompanied by her mother, Guadalupe, a former kindergarten teacher from the Bronx. She was also missing her wedding ring.

Mum's the word: Jennifer Lopez and her mother Lupe meet Prince William and his wife Catherine at the Bafta gala in Hollywood

Royal aides, along with the singer-actress’s millions of fans, were mystified. 

But on Friday night in a statement issued through J-Lo’s publicist, the couple, worth an estimated £240 million, announced they are to divorce.

They called the decision ‘painful’ and ‘difficult’. But The Mail on Sunday has spoken to several of the couple’s closest confidantes and can reveal they began to drift apart three years after their marriage in June 2004.

 

‘This is not a surprise,’ J-Lo’s stylist Phillip Bloch said in an exclusive interview last night. 

‘Marc is very controlling. In the beginning she liked that because he stood up to her, and in the early days he was very much in love with her and she was with him.’

Couple: Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony seem close as they attend a Hollywood function 

But the couple are said to have begun to squabble soon after 41-year-old J-Lo’s mother moved into their Long Island, New York mansion in 2008 to help look after their newborn twins. 

‘They also clashed when she learned he owed millions in unpaid taxes on the Long Island estate,’ said film-maker Ed Meyer, an associate of J-Lo’s first husband, Cuban-born club-owner Ojani Noa.

‘The other problem was that they couldn’t agree where to live. 

'J-Lo’s career is in Hollywood and she wanted to live in their Malibu mansion and Marc loved New York. She was going to move to New York in a last-ditch effort to save the marriage. But last Monday I heard it was all over.’

In November 2002 – after a second failed marriage, to backing dancer Cris Judd – Jennifer became engaged to actor Ben Affleck, declaring he was ‘the one’. 

But The Mail on Sunday has learned that years before, another man, top Latin American recording artist Marc Anthony, had become infatuated with her. 

J-Lo broke up with Affleck in January 2004. 

That June Marc, now 42, finalised his divorce from former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres. 

Marriages Jennifer with previous husbands Ojani Noa, left and Chris Judd, right

Four days later they married at Jennifer’s home in Beverly Hills.

They presented themselves as a fairytale couple. 

But soon after the birth of the twins, the couple are said to have begun to argue. 

Bond: Jennifer Lopez with her mother, Lupe, during a live appearance for the debut of her new fragrance Love and Light this month

‘J-Lo’s mother wanted to run her life and Marc wanted to run her life and I don’t think J-Lo wanted anyone to control her,’ said Meyer. 

Friends say J-Lo made one last attempt to save the marriage with her offer to move back to New York. 

‘She fought to make it work for the sake of the children,’ said Phillip Bloch. ‘She desperately did not want a third divorce.’

Film royalty: Jennifer Lopez shares a kiss with her then fiance actor Ben Affleck at the Academy Awards in 2003

That's got to hurt! Curvy Jennifer Lopez pours herself into a very tightly laced PVC body-stocking

She's nicknamed La Guitarra due to her famed curvy figure - and Jennifer Lopez is certainly strum-thing else in her latest steamy photoshoot to promote her forthcoming single (What Is) Love? 

The 41-year-old mother of two posed instead for a shoot in a risqué skin-tight body suit that was totally slashed down the sides, revealing most of her famous body.

The eye-popping outfit is accessorised with vertigo-inducing silver peep toe stilettos and yards of silver chain necklaces.   


Scroll down to hear J.Lo's new single (What Is) Love?...

Ladder in her tights: Jennifer Lopez was wearing a flesh-flashing sparkly lattice-sided skintight bodysuit in the steamy photoshoot for her new single (What Is) Love?

Pout and about: Jennifer probably had quite a job getting out of the sparkly flesh-flashing skintight bodysuit too 

Elsewhere, the star is looking racy in tiny red hotpants as she hangs on the telephone and elsewhere, luxuriates in the back on a limo in a Mongolian lamb coat as she flashes her thighs surrounded by white roses.

 

She is also seen sitting on a rock in a catsuit made entirely out of latticed metal and hugging a stone wall in a fringed dress.

Meanwhile, the On The Floor singer is set to return as a judge on American Idol next year. 

Precious metal: However, the lattice work body suit didn't look like the most comfortable of outfits, particularly when sat on a wall

Stone cold sultry: The singer also did some pouting whilst hugging a brick wall

Although she refused to be drawn on the topic when she appeared on the U.S. morning show Today yesterday when she announced she would be playing the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas in September with Lady Gaga and Coldplay, insiders say the paperwork has all be sorted. 

Apparently, the star has already signed a deal that will see her back on the panel for the 11th season of the show. 

Also set to return are Steve Tyler and Randy Jackson.

Only a month ago, Lopez told the BBC that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to come back to the hit Fox reality competition.

Calling the fire brigade? The star posed in sizzling hot tight red hotpants in another of the promotional poses

Party line: The star likes to communicate either by phone or curves 

She mused: 'I don't know. I haven't been forced to make a decision and I'm glad about that because honestly I'm very on the fence about it,.

'I had an amazing time doing it and I loved it, but I have a lot other things happening, and it's going to come down to me making a choice of what I want to do for the next year and we're not really at the breaking point of "You have to make a decision right now!"


'I'm just really enjoying the time of just waiting and seeing.'

Backseat driver: In another shot, Jennifer looks every inch the thigh-flashing diva in a lambswool coat in the back of a limo 

American Idol Season 11 kicks off in early 2012.

Meanwhile, a release date for (What Is) Love? has yet to be confirmed. 

It will be the third single from the star's seventh album Love?, following her smash hits On The Floor and I'm Into You, which went to Number One and Number Nine respectively. 
 

Woman in chains: Don't be fooled by the rocks that she's got, she's still Jenny from the block