Her family life
There’s a home video of 7-year-old Jessica Alba going to Disneyland with her family. Looking sweetly into the camera, she firmly declares, “I’m a feminist, and I don’t need a man for nothing.” It’s a mantra that has served the now 40-year-old actress and entrepreneur well over the years. From acting and producing in Hollywood to running her baby-product and beauty brand the Honest Company to raising her kids Honor, 13, Haven, 10, and Hayes, 3, with husband Cash Warren, 42, Alba has always dreamed big and had a plan. “I think I came into the world with a very strategic mindset about anything that I wanted to do,” she says. “I was always like, ‘Nothing can get in my way.’”
The Mexican American Alba also became the youngest Latina ever to take a company public in May: the Honest Company hit Nasdaq with an IPO valuation of $2.7 billion, though at press time its market value had dipped to $1.9 billion. Alba, who co-founded the company in 2012, is used to weathering business ups and downs (including past lawsuits over product ingredients that were settled or dismissed) but continues to be driven by her bigpicture goals.
“I always felt like I should be able to have a family. I should be able to love my career. I should be able to feel like I have purpose and I’m trying to do something good with this life,” she says. “I think if you really have conviction around the things that you want for yourself, and you stay focused on that, you can manifest them.”
You started acting when you were 12. When did you realise you were going to be able to make it?
I come from a family of performers, so for me to do it wasn’t so far-fetched. It wasn’t until James Cameron chose me when I was 17 to star in a TV show [Dark Angel] that I was like, “OK, I think I can do this as a career.” Because I did pray a lot – “Show me a sign!” By the time I was 18, if I didn’t get one of those signs, I was going to go to college and figure out something else. What was the pressure like to prove you were more than just a beautiful young actress?
I always wanted to be treated the way that I saw men being treated. Men were told, “Oh, you’re really smart,” if you have ideas about the character or the story, where for the women it was like,
“I want to wake up every day excited to live my life. It doesn’t energise me to hurt people”
“What? You have an opinion?” It was like you came off as aggressive, where a man just looked really assertive and powerful. I think attitudes about strong women were quite oppressive in a lot of ways when it came to women having an equal standing. Were you ever insecure?
I’ve been wildly insecure throughout my life about various things, but I was never so insecure that I’m not going to try something. The fact that people didn’t believe that I was capable of something probably drove me to fully realise what I had in my head and hit goals. I think the resistance fired me up and gave me energy
to prove them wrong, but maybe most importantly to prove to myself that I could do it. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t still insecure about myself physically. I was really shy in a lot of ways and a late bloomer.
Did you ever feel you had to downplay your Mexican American heritage?
I don’t know if there was an interest in it, really. It was more like, “How lucky are you to be here?” Or, “What’s it like being objectified?” I was like, “That check cleared, and I’m happy about that, because you know what sucks? Struggling.” I know what it’s like to live pay cheque to pay cheque, and it’s not freaking fun. So I just had a different mentality or a different drive. I’ve had to pave my own way.
When you first started thinking about the Honest Company, did you envision how big it would become?
Absolutely. I actually had the biggest vision right away, and then I had to bring it down to earth … I just knew in my heart that this company should exist. If people knew that they could take their health and wellness into their own hands and make better choices, why wouldn’t you? The hardest part was probably getting it off the ground. Every detail mattered. So I didn’t sleep very much and worked weekends and obsessed.
What’s your advice for people wanting to take a big chance?
I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose, because no-one believed I could do it in the first place. If you’re doing something that you haven’t done or has never been done before, what do you really have to lose?
How do you handle moments where people underestimate you?
I love facts and data, so whenever there’s a naysayer with a laundry list of why everything shouldn’t happen, I love asking questions. “Oh, really? Why couldn’t this work?” And then you collect all the data that you need to come in and hit them over the head with it. It’s also the way you deliver it. Because if you deliver it with a smile, it’s just facts.
Have you found a way to give equal energy to your career and motherhood?
I do think where you choose to be present is where you’re going to give your all. But during COVID, my kid’s going to come in and interrupt a meeting. I’m not less capable of making decisions or doing things. I just have to pause. “What is it? Stop fighting with your sister.” That’s life. We’re not robots. But I think the self-care piece of it is often left out. And mental health. We don’t give ourselves enough time and space for that. And I wish we did.
Do you have any mum pet peeves that make you lose your patience?
Yeah, Haven steals my phone and goes on TikTok because she’s not allowed to have social media. Whenever there needs to be a chore done, Honor loves to be doing her homework. And Cash plays chess and does New York Times crosswords pretty much every waking hour that I’m trying to talk to him about anything.
What’s your secret for a successful marriage?
At different times there were different things that we needed. Around the time I had kids, it was like, “I need [a date night] once a week.” And he’s been like, “I need you to be present on the weekends and not work.” Overcommunicating, maybe that’s it. We overcommunicate what’s happening before it gets to the point of no return.
When have you felt most empowered?
When I allowed myself to feel that way. For a long time I felt like I didn’t deserve it. Trying to reach a goal is one thing, but giving myself the space to be successful and acknowledge that, or even giving myself the space to feel intelligent, was hard.
When all is said and done, how do you hope to be remembered?
As fearless and hardworking. And I hope people know that my heart’s in the right place. I feel so fortunate that I’ve had these incredible people come into my life and stick around even though I can be kind of annoying and relentless. But I don’t know – we get to create pretty cool memories together.
“I don’t really like it when people tell me no”