Jessica Alba Used an Armor of Masculinity to Not Be Preyed On as Teen in Hollywood

Jessica Alba harnessed her own superpower to thwart unwanted sexual advances.

The “Fantastic Four” alum addressed her sexualization as the star of James Cameron’s “Dark Angel” series in 2000. Alba was 19 years old at the time. The show ran for two seasons before concluding in 2002, with Alba going on to star in films “Sin City” and “Honey.”

“I guess I understood that I needed to help sell the product. And they sell it how they do, so I understood it as a business decision and a strategy,” Alba said during the “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” talk show. “And so I was able to distance myself from it. But I guess, you know, you can’t change other people’s minds about what they may or may not think of you.”

She continued, “I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with owning your sexuality. I just frankly was definitely not that person. I was very nervous about all of that, and I was quite uncomfortable in my own skin.”

Alba noted that she purposefully gave off a “masculine energy” to not be “preyed on” in Hollywood.

“It wasn’t until I became a mom that I really started to even see myself as a woman or a sexual being or someone who owned her power and her femininity,” Alba said. “At that time, I felt like I was very much having to put up this armor of masculinity and masculine energy so I wouldn’t, you know, be preyed on because there were a lot of predators in Hollywood from age 12 to 26.”

She added, “I was a warrior. I put up that energy. I was really tough, man. I curse like a sailor and I think I tried to make myself as unavailable as possible so that I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.”

Alba previously addressed being a Mexican-American actress in Hollywood, saying that while she is “naturally an introvert,” she proudly took on “being one of the few” diverse superheroes in the MCU as Sue Storm in “Fantastic Four.”

“If you have people in charge who aren’t really reflective of the audience you’re appealing to, they only know what they know. They only know what they like. And so they’re going to gravitate towards more of the same,” Alba said in July 2022. “And 50 percent of the population, we’re women. And we like action movies, and we like superheroes, and we like romantic comedies, and we like dramas and horror, and all of that. But if 90 percent of the people in charge don’t look like us, they’re just going to continue to do the same. The system just has to be more diverse.”

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