Jessica Alba
Jessica Marie Alba (/ˈælbə/ AL-bə; born April 28, 1981)[2] is an American actress and businesswoman.[3][4][5] She began her acting career at age 13 in Camp Nowhere (1994), followed up by The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.[6][7][8]
Jessica Alba
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016).[9] She is a frequent collaborator with director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products.[10] A number of magazines, including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM, have included Alba on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California[11] on April 28, 1981, to Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were children of Mexican immigrants.[12] She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano.[13] Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled in Claremont, California when she was nine years old.[7] Alba has described her family as "very conservative… a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family", and herself as very liberal; she says she identified as a "feminist" as early as age five.[14]
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child.[7] She became isolated from other children at school because she was hospitalized so often, no one knew her well enough to befriend her.[15] She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers.[14] She graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.[16]
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products.[10] The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion as of 2014.[81]
In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller.[82][83] In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.[84][85]
As of April 2022, Alba owned 6.5 percent of the company. She was employed as the company's chief creative officer, receiving an annually base salary of $700,000 and restricted stock valued $1,500,000.[86] Alba stepped down as chief creative officer in April 2024.[87]
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell,[88][89] feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention.[89] Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."[89]
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season.[90] She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.[91]
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town.[92] Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism.[93] On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it.[94][95] Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions.[94] She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500)[96] to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.[97][98][99][100]
In 2011, Alba participated in a two day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.[101][102] Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act.[103] She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".[104]
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby.[105][106] Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa.[107] She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.[108]
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.[109]
Personal life
Alba was raised a Catholic[135] throughout her teenage years,[136] but left the Church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining, "Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman."[137]
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality, and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining: "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life."[133] Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at age 15 when she guest-starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the Church.[7] However, she has stated that she still holds a belief in God.[138]
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted.[45] In August 2003, they announced that they had ended their relationship.[18] In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying, "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."[139]
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004.[140][141] They were married in Los Angeles in May 2008.[142][143] They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008,[144] and Haven Garner born in August 2011,[145] and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017.[146] The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.[147]
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s genealogy series Finding Your Roots, which documented her learning about her lineage, which was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization.[148] The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. His matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".[149]