Mario Lopez admitted that he never loved his first wife, Ali Landry, in his recent memoir.
If that isn't shocking enough, the couple was only married for 14 days.
While you may think that his lack of love was the reason their marriage didn't last,
think again. We have the lowdown of everything that led to Mario's failed first marriage and
how Ali found out that he betrayed her before she even walked down the aisle.
Stay tuned to Rumor Juice, the best place to go for all the juiciest
scoops on Hollywood relationships. Don't forget to hit that notification bell too!
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lopez and Ali Landry were something of an "it" couple.
The former couple first met at the 1998 Miss Teen USA pageant,
and Mario recalled that he was immediately captivated by how beautiful she was.
She was Catholic with an innocent charm, and she seemed like everything he could have wanted in
a woman. However, in his memoir titled 'Just Between Us,' he also admitted, "I could have
been looking at a lot of criteria that were more on the surface than not. But that was my bad."
By looks alone, Ali and Mario seemed like a Hollywood match made in heaven, and it
was only fitting that these two hit it off. The couple dated for 6 years prior to tying the knot,
making it clear they were in it for the long run, or so Ali thought.
It was mere days after the pair said their "I do's" at a destination wedding that rumours
quickly surfaced that Lopez had cheated on Landry, which led to their very quick split.
When the rumors turned out to be true, it all came as quite a shock to their fans,
considering the duo appeared to have been madly in love just before their wedding. How could they
have been dating for all those years, only to have their marriage crumble in just two weeks?
Years later, the former Saved By The Bell actor came forward to give
all the details on what really happened to cause their split
along with why he cheated on Ali - believe it or not; he didn't take all of the blame.
Even though it was confirmed that Mario had been unfaithful to Ali,
the actual breakdown of their relationship was a little more complex than that.
Looking back at everything both Ali and Mario had said about their marriage, it seems as
though they would have never lived happily ever after, even without all of the cheating.
The couple broke up very briefly before their engagement,
but Ali quickly gave him an ultimatum to propose or move on.
Unfortunately, things were never the same for them after that, and it all went downhill from there.
In his memoir, Just Between Us, Lopez admitted that he cheated on Landry while out with friends
for his bachelor party. However, he also admitted to having second thoughts about
their union for some time. In his memoir, Lopez revealed that he considered putting
a stop to the wedding but felt that it was too late to do anything about it.
The date had been set, invitations sent, and the whole world was expecting them to be married.
The actor also felt that Ali was no longer the woman that he had fallen in love with.
Lopez explained that he thought Landry quickly went from a good Catholic girl with great morals
to an image-obsessed supermodel after gaining success in her career.
"The changes were subtle, but her interests sounded more materialistic,
and she seemed more preoccupied with image rather than substance,
things I didn't care about. Our conversations became less based on common interests and
more about her pressuring me to be a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way."
He also understood that this was the turning point in their relationship.
They were either going to break up or get married. To Mario, there was nothing wrong
with their relationship on paper, so perhaps what he was feeling was just cold feet?
"I thought, 'She's beautiful, she's a good girl, she comes from a great family,
she'd make a great mom…I confused cold feet with not being ready." He explained.
Ironically, Landry also considered calling off the wedding.
During an interview on The Wendy Williams Show, Landry recalled that she had heard
murmurings that her then-future-husband had been unfaithful just weeks before the wedding.
After confronting Mario with what she had heard, he denied all the rumors and reassured
her he had been faithful. Even then, she still thought that what they were doing was a mistake.
Unfortunately, she said she went through with it because,
just like Lopez, she thought it was too late to turn back now.
She told Oprah that she had believed Mario when he said no cheating occurred.
She told Oprah, "All of my friends and family were flying down to this wedding
in Mexico. So, I went through with the wedding."
If they had only been honest with one another from the start and not gone along with the wedding,
they would have avoided all the scandal and heartbreak that was to come following their
very messy divorce. Following their split,
Lopez was the first to spill the details about his affair that caused his divorce.
In 2011, Lopez admitted to Howard Stern that the weekend of his bachelor's was doomed
from the start because he hadn't told Ali the truth of what his friends had planned for him.
"I said I was going to Cabo…to go marlin fishing. Then my cousin surprised me and
said 'No, … we're going on this whirlwind tour: Cabo, Acapulco, all these places,'" he explained.
Rather than tell her about the change of plans, he kept it to himself.
He explained, "I figured at that point, it was easier to ask for forgiveness afterward.
It's my bachelor party, we were going to have a good time. And we went, we had a good time."
During the bachelor's weekend, Lopez found himself in several compromising positions,
complete with alcohol and women. He admitted to Stern that he "messed around" with several of
them during the weekend. While the actor openly shared that he got "too friendly" with some of
the women at his bachelor party, he explained he did so because he wasn't "in love" with Landry.
"Once I took responsibility for my feelings,
acknowledging how I had so mishandled my decisions, lightning hit me with the truth:
I wasn't in love. The thoughts came streaming in, but it was too late. My misgivings reared
their ugly heads, and I knew I should have broken things off with her before I strayed."
Unfortunately, while he was getting too close for comfort with one of 'the other women,'
someone took a snap of them together. While the picture was making its rounds amongst friends,
somehow Landry's sister eventually got a hold of that photo and shared it with her.
"I was wrong for obviously lying, and I shouldn't have been in that position," Lopez said.
Landry and Lopez a few weeks later, and things quickly came crashing down when she discovered
he cheated and confronted Lopez about it, on their honeymoon no less. She told Wendy Williams
in a 2012 interview that she taped Lopez's phone when she became suspicious of his behavior after
noticing he received phone calls from other women during their honeymoon. Ali shared that
Lopez denied that he was unfaithful despite her evidence and that he never apologized.
"I had heard something right before the wedding. He swore that it was not true,
but I had that feeling in my gut," she explained. "One of my girlfriends said,
'If you really want to know, I know how to tap a phone.' The craziest thing. I thought,
'I don't want to tap his phone. This is the man I've been with, I should trust him.'"
She also didn't want to believe that he had been unfaithful to her.
She loved him, and they had been together for over six years.
Why would he have thrown it all away over one weekend? When he had denied all the cheating
rumors, she had believed him because accepting the truth would have been too painful for her.
However, Mario eventually came clean and admitted that he had been unfaithful.
"I dealt with all this drama, and then at that point just realize…I finally got
the balls to say 'Hey, listen I'm not ready for this, I'm sorry.'"
He realized at that point that he wasn't ready to settle down.
He understood that they should never have gotten married,
and he confessed that he "… wasn't man enough to know how to go about handling it."
Lopez later detailed the fallout from the marriage in his memoir, and he expressed
guilt and remorse for his indiscretions but said it ultimately worked out for the best.
However, the title of his memoir, 'Just Between Us,' does seem a little misleading since he is
sharing all the intimate details of his past relationships in such a public way,
and it's not known why he decided to share all the nitty-gritty information so many years later.
The actor moved on and eventually married Courtney Lopez in Mexico in 2012. The couple
now has three children together. They often share snaps of their romance and family on social media,
letting the world know that they're still happy and thriving.
"It worked out well," the actor shared, "Thank god, because I got a great girl now."
Luckily for Ali, the star has gone on to find love again with none other than her hubby,
Alejandro Monteverde
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__TeyFgpWCY - 1.04), and he seems like a real keeper!
The two married in 2006 and also share three beautiful children together.
Although tensions were incredibly high between Ali and Mario following their split, the two
are very cordial today. If there's anything that we can learn from their relationship,
it's that you should always listen to your gut. If something doesn't feel right,
it probably isn't, and that's okay.