…you do for love. Yup.

Seriously, people…how long do you think it will take for this one to fail?

Marc Anthony and his wife Jennifer Lopez have been shooting the film, El Cantante, based on the rocky drug-and-booze-infused life of legendary Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe, who was known as El Cantante de los Cantantes (“the singer’s singer”). Marc Anthony stars as Hector. Jennifer, natch, plays Hector’s wife Puchi. She’s also a producer on the film.

Marc Anthony the singer is quite talented, extraordinary even. I’ve been listening to his music for the past ten years and love to get my salsa on whenever I hear it. My fake salsa. Made-up steps. I can’t salsa for real, y’all. I mean, c’mon.

Jennifer on her own produces make-do musical fluff that’s good enough, but nothing to write home about. (Although, I must admit, she has had a few standout songs that I’ve genuinely enjoyed, “Waiting For Tonight” being one of them.)

Marc has been pacing himself with his film career, taking small roles and building decent momentum. I like him as an actor.

Jennifer was on a nice roll with her box office efforts—Selena, Out of Sight, The Wedding Planner, Maid In Manhattan (we’ll just pretend that The Cell and Enough didn’t happen)—successfully securing herself as an A-list actress who was box office gold, for the most part. Then she did Gigli with then-lover Ben Affleck. And she’s been a box office shitstain ever since. Shall We Dance? Meh. For a brief moment, with the success of Monster-in-Law, it seemed the curse had been revoked. Then An Unfinished Life arrived D.O.A. The curse was still in effect. You’d think the girl would get the message. It’s not like the universe isn’t trying to give her a warning. A fire even broke out on the set of her and Marc’s movie earlier this month. Per Hollywood.com:

The couple, who have been filming the Hector Lavoe biopic together since the beginning of the week, were briefly evacuated from the set yesterday after an electrical fire broke out underground—beneath Lopez’s trailer.

Beneath her trailer, y’all. Her trailer. The message couldn’t be any louder or clearer: never collaborate with a lover. Ever. Never. Never-ever. Never-ever never-ever never-ever never-ever never. Ever. It’s bad news all around.

It might seem great in theory, and there are instances where it can work out. Most of the time it doesn’t. Most of the time it fails so miserably, you and your (now) ex-lover never speak again. Do your thing and let him do his. Be supportive of each other’s efforts and leave it at that. Just because you’re good in bed doesn’t mean it will translate to other areas. If I’ve learned nothing else in life, it’s to never collaborate with a lover. It’s a sure-fire recipe for disaster, especially when the relationship starts to go south. More often than not, the reason it goes south is because of the failure of the damn collaboration that never should have happened. Finger-pointing can be an ugly thing.

But has Jennifer learned?

No, no, y no. She and Marc tried this let’s do something together crap once before at the Grammys earlier this year and it was disastrous, an absolute farce. They were a laughingstock. And now they’re doing it again for a longer stretch of time. Feature film length. Ay dios mio.

You know he’s making her do it. Marc has been running the show ever since they got married. Jennifer no longer wears those half-open outfits she wore in the Diddy days. Marc’s got her dressing like a Spanish matron. And he goes everywhere with her. Look at how he’s holding her hand in that picture where they’re singing at the Grammys. You just know he’s chanting in her ear as she sleeps, “You love Marc…you’ll never leave him…he’s so sexy…he’s the sexiest man alive…his bones are actually muscles…you married the sexiest, most muscular man alive…you hate wearing skimpy clothes…and your ass is way overrated, try to keep it covered.”

Marc’s no dummy. He’s keeping his woman close, on lock and in check. Better she make so-so movies with him than do a project with someone else and end up leaving him for the guy she’s working with. She’s does have a bit of a track record for that.

Go on, Marc Anthony, wit’ your bad self. You’ve been studying at the Tom Cruise School of Hold-A-Bitch-Hostage, haven’t you? I’ll bet you’ve got her learning this same trick. It’s not just for blowing out candles anymore.