Back in 2015, Jennifer Lopez starred in a movie called The Boy Next Door. Her costar was Ryan Guzman, a much younger actor. I never saw it, but it’s basically like – a 19-year-old guy has a fling with his older, hot teacher and he turns into a deranged stalker. The promotion for the film leaned into “Jennifer Lopez is a cougar and she and Ryan Guzman have a lot of chemistry together.” I mean… pretty traditional as far as film promotions go, and J.Lo and Guzman did many events together, even attending the Golden Globes together. The whole time, Guzman had a girlfriend – a model named Melanie Iglesias. Well, Melanie is now talking about what happened behind the scenes:

Model Melanie Iglesias, the ex-girlfriend of The Boy Next Door star Ryan Guzman, claims that Jennifer Lopez, who featured in the film alongside Guzman, wanted him to pretend that he was single to promote the movie. Iglesias’ claims come at a time when Lopez is facing a decrease in popularity, as she was forced to cancel multiple tour dates due to low ticket sales.

“She made my ex, oh my God, pretend that he was single to promote the movie,” Iglesias said on a recent episode of the No Chaser podcast. “The publicists, both of them, called me … so they were at afterparties together, like, holding hands and stuff to promote this.”

Lopez was then reportedly seen “cozying up” to Guzman at a Golden Globes afterparty.

Iglesias also recalled an instance in which Lopez, appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show, downplayed the pair’s relationship and implied that they had broken up.

“I think he might? I’m not sure. I know he did.… I’m not in his business like that,” Lopez told Ellen, who has since gone off the air.

“Not yet,” DeGeneres jested. Lopez played coy: “You never know.”

“We’ve met,” Iglesias recalled of the interview on the podcast. “We friggin’ met. What do you mean you don’t know if he had a girlfriend? We met. You squeezed the sh-t out of my hand. I’m still black and blue.” Of their meeting, Iglesias explained that when Lopez was introduced to her, the multi-hyphenate “looked me up and down, and she gave me the hardest, firmest handshake in the world. I was like, ‘Ow! I’ll have my hand back, Jesus.’”

Eventually, Iglesias and Guzman broke up when he began “coming home at 2 in the morning.” Whether Lopez had anything to do with that isn’t specified but Iglesias further bemoaned the film’s PR strategy: “Where’s your faith in the movie? You know what I mean? Why do you have to act like you’re with everyone that you’re in a movie with…I don’t get it.”

[From Bro Bible & Jezebel]

Yeah, two things are happening simultaneously – this kind of “baiting the gossip columns/playing up a fauxmance” angle is tried-and-true for actors promoting a variety of films. This is not some big scandal and many actors do it, including many of our faves. The other thing that’s happening is that Jennifer Lopez probably wanted Guzman to basically dump his girlfriend or fully pretend that he was single to promote the film. J.Lo didn’t want Melanie Iglesias around in any way, shape or form. I know some people will use this as fuel for “Jennifer Lopez isn’t a girl’s girl.” Maybe she isn’t a girl’s girl (I think she gets along fine with most women actually) but all of this was probably more about business than anything else. I was going to make a crack about how maybe Melanie is a Virgo (and thus, J.Lo hated her on sight) but Melania is actually… a Gemini. Don’t f–k with Geminis!!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.