Jessica Alba's secret past: kidnapped at 15, called a 'whore' at school, dated anyone who asked her out
Jessica Alba, 37, is now a businesswoman with a net worth in the millions, but she loves living the 'normal' life with her husband Ella Cash and her three children.
Actress Jessica Alba is rarely seen on the celebrity radar and it has become clear that she is slowly choosing to live her life away from the harsh Hollywood spotlight. However, the movies and the pressure of her career may not have been the only factors that prompted the star to opt for this low-key life. The renowned actress went through a very difficult time during her childhood and she may have had a significant role in impacting the way her life has turned out.
During her childhood, she went through phases in which she was branded a 'whore' at school, she broke her virginity pact with an 'old' boyfriend, and she was also kidnapped at age 15, an incident she never talk about her. These and more incidents may have influenced the actress' current life choice, reports The Sun.
The actress was on the set of her first show, Flipper, in 1996 when she started receiving strange calls that she dismissed as a joke. However, shortly after this, the 15-year-old was kidnapped and was missing for around 14 hours. After a long and extensive search, she was found bound, blindfolded and gagged in the trunk of a car. The case had to be dismissed because Jessica was unable to provide any information and refused to answer any questions about her horrific experience.
Even when she was a child, her health problems constantly worried her. She had partially collapsed and had ruptured lungs and often suffered from asthma and pneumonia several times a year. She was also diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder and also obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Like any teenager, understanding her physical growth and accepting her changes proved to be a difficult time. Society wasn't making things easy either. Jessica's family were born again Christians, but the church strongly disapproved of Jessica's looks and appearance. She said, 'Older men would flirt with me, and my youth pastor said it was because he was wearing provocative clothing, when he wasn't. He just made me feel like I was somehow desirable to the opposite sex which was my fault, and he made me ashamed of my body and of being a woman." She had developed breasts at a fairly young age and was called a 'whore' by one of the school administrators when she was a child.
She was also bullied by her fellow students, which caused her to be very confused about her body image and later she developed an eating disorder. Jessica revealed: 'A lot of girls have eating disorders and so do I. I got obsessed with it. I never see myself as a beautiful woman and I have never traded with that to get ahead in this business.'
Even though she grew up in a very religious family that was against sex before marriage, she Jessica dated 'whoever asked her out', but she had one rule: she never slept with them. She had previously said: 'I basically dated any guy who asked me out because hardly anyone asked me out. I remember this boy who really liked me. It was so boring that I ordered a hamburger and ate it in a very masculine way, like a pig, dripping and chewing with my mouth open.'
'I think I may have even burped...anything so he wouldn't like me and the date would eventually end. But he just liked her more. It was horrible,' she continued. However, she remained a virgin and avoided going to parties. When she began to see show business as a young adult, she began to question the teachings of the church. She also fell in love with a ballet dancer who was bisexual and frequented a gay club at least 4 nights a week.
Jessica shared: 'I was so in love with him and thought, 'There's no way this guy is going to hell. My born again Christian friends did not approve of that. It was very twisted.' When she was filming 'Dark Angel' she dated her co-star Michael Weatherly for about four years and on her 20th birthday, he proposed to her. Jessica's parents did not approve of the relationship because they had a 12-year age difference.
Three years later, the couple split in 2003. Jessica recalled: 'I was so young, 18, when I started dating him. I was a virgin. I knew I wanted to be in love with the first person I slept with because for almost everyone I met, the first experience made them feel like shit. Jessica then had a phase of dating a lot of men and admits she 'enjoyed a wild period with men for a second'.
Jessica met producer Cash Warren while filming 'Fantastic Four' in 2004, and the following year she told Cosmo, 'He's not famous. He could be the one. It was kind of like love at first sight, but I met him when I was dating someone else, so it started out as a friendship. The first week we got together, she gave me a note and signed it with a dollar sign, because his name is Cash. She was just like, 'I really, really like you. And that was exactly how I felt at the time,' she shared. She then became pregnant with her first child in 2008 and the couple married in a secret and intimate ceremony with no guests.
Later, Jessica began to feel typecast in the industry and she felt it was time to leave the movies. This was sometime after 2009. From then on, she started doing fewer movies and started doing a few cameo appearances. Meanwhile, her interest was entirely focused on her business venture that we now know her by: The Honest Company. The self-employed business, a collection of homewares and baby products, is worth a whopping $1bn (£770m), the Sun reports.
Now, in 2018, Jessica, 37, is an entrepreneur, with a net worth of £270m, but she loves living the 'normal' life with her husband Cash and their three children, daughters Honor, 10, Haven, seven and their son Hayes. , 10 months.