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Jessica Alba: I Was a Virgin When I Posed for My Sexy ‘Maxim’ Cover in 2000

Jessica Alba
Alba celebrate the launch of the Springtime in Paris Diaper Collection with The Honest Company in 2016.

Completely honest. Jessica Alba opened up in the July issue of InStyle about becoming a sex symbol — before she’d ever had sex. The 35-year-old actress got her big break in Hollywood starring in the sci-fi series Dark Angel in 2000, and she soon began covering magazines.

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“My sexuality made me very uncomfortable,” she said. “I remember my first Maxim shoot, they were telling me to pose a certain way, and I was like, ‘Agh! I’m 19. I’m a virgin. I don’t even know how to do that.’ It was so awkward.” In the 2000 spread for the men’s magazine, Alba showed off her curves in a black bra under a totally sheer top.

Jessica Alba

As a tomboy growing up, the Sin City star wasn’t totally comfortable with her newfound sultry image. “I was into wearing Triple Five Soul baggy cargo pants. I would get Hanes tank tops and dye them with Rit dye and wear Nike sports bras and sweatshirts. It was the opposite of sexy,” she said.

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“The first time I wore a dress and heels, I had to go to the Golden Globes — I was nominated for Dark Angel,” she recalled. “I took my brother. I was so worried about not looking like a lady. I remember thinking, ‘I hope I don’t trip.’”

Jessica Alba
Alba in ‘Dark Angel’ in 2000.

By the time she was 25, she had played an exotic dancer in Sin City and a bikini-clad diver in Into the Blue. “I sort of went through a life crisis,” she told InStyle. “I was like, ‘This isn’t what I set out to be. I’m so much more than this, but I don’t know how not to be a sex symbol.'”

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Ten years later, the beauty is the founder of a billion-dollar business, The Honest Company, which makes safe, eco-friendly products for both children and adults at affordable prices. She’s also mom to two daughters, Honor, 7, and Haven, 4, with her husband, Cash Warren. “It was not planned, but I was like, ‘OK, this is where my life is going,’” she said of finding out she was pregnant at age 26. “I always wanted to be a mom.'”

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