Jessica Alba has never been a fan of the paparazzi. In fact she’s been known to go off on them and generally freak out in their direction whenever possible. And while a little of that is understandable, generally speaking she takes it to a new level, and has insighted a lot of internet hatred for it. Last night Jessica decided to turn the table on a reporter who was asking her questions she didn’t want to answer. When he said he didn’t think he should answer her political questions, she told him to be neutral like Sweden.
It’s a blessing Jessica Alba made a career out of wearing bathing suits and spandex in terrible movies, because homegirl would’ve made a horrible and embarrassing journalist. (Although her bank account probably isn’t crying any tears she chose “acting”)
At some Inaugural party in D.C., (where thankfully Alba knew it was Obama she was supporting) she tried to get all Snarky McSnark on a journalist who just wanted a low-maintenance sound bite from the actress. Check out the video on TMZ.com here.
Instead she cut him off immediately and said: “Can I ask you a question? This is for my blog.” and whipped out her phone and started taping. (Jessica Alba has a blog? HA!)
“What do you think is Barack’s greatest characteristic going into office?” she said.
When the shaken journalist said it was probably best he didn’t answer — seeing as he’s on the clock and all — Alba tried to make a funny and said:
“Be neutral! Be Sweden about it!”
The journalist was a gentleman and too polite to bother correcting her, but we’re not. It’s Switzerland, Jessica. Switzerland. In her defense, both countries do start with the letter “S” and they’re both in Europe. At least she didn’t say Sudan. Or Singapore.
[From A Socialite’s Life via Gossip Rocks]
A Socialite’s Life quickly cleared up their error in thinking that Jessica should have said the more commonly referenced Switzerland, because Sweden was also neutral during World War II. So instead of initially thinking Jessica made a major blunder, she actually should be getting some serious points for remembering – and referencing – something a lot of us forget.
I’m really curious about this supposed blog she has. Something tells me it was more a quick invention to prove her point than anything she’s actually planning on creating. While I hate to say it, Jessica Alba is growing on me in little bits.
Here’s Jessica Alba leaving the Huffington Post’s Inaugural Ball on Monday night. Images thanks to Splash.
Get’em Jessica, watch them run ! Parasites.
I really think she meant to say Switzerland and wasn’t being clever about it and purposely referencing another, similar-sounding country that isn’t as known for its neutrality.
I completely agree with celebitchy. She made a mistake that happened to be correct, but doubt she knew it at the time. Also doubt she has a blog.
TWIT!
In another article I read just the other day (or was it yesterday?) it was mentioned that she was doing videos of people chatting about the presidential issues for a reason so that part I can believe.
Huh, CB and manda, are you saying that Sweden is neutral? It wasn’t the last time I checked. And it’s definitely nowhere near as officially neutral as Switzerland, in which I happen to be living at the moment.
I think that if I tried telling a Swiss that Sweden is neutral, they’d rip my head off and ship the remains out of the country, stat.
As for Jessica: is there some kind of crazy-bug in the air? Is it just me or does it also seem to you guys that more and more celebs talk and act exceptionally crazy these days? Tom who wants to kill an already-dead Hitler, Gwyneth and GOOP, Joaquin and the rap and now Jessica and this uninformed comment about Sweden/Switzerland and some gibberish about a blog.
I hope that bug stays in Hollywood!
Oh I don’t know CB – Sweden is known as a very progressive society with pacifist leanings (which served them well during the Cold War).
Switzerland just got more press from its neutrality because of WW2 because it was bordered by two of the Axis powers and Vichy France and the stories of Nazi gold.
Now if she said somewhere like Lichtenstein and got it right (I’ve no earthy clue whether it’s neutral or not) I’d have been far more impressed.
I dislike her even more now, didn’t think that was humanly possible.
I honestly don’t know much about the neutrality status of Sweden and am just going on the article.
Sorry CB, I phrased my comment poorly. What I was attempting to say was that, given Sweden’s ultra-progressive reputation that it sounded right to me that they were a neutral country and I didn’t think that they were annexed by the USSR at any stage.
I needed to double-check the fact though (where I noticed that they had a policy of neutrality since the early 19th century)
You guys are probably right that it was a lucky accident, but you never know, perhaps she’s better read than we assume (well done her if that’s the case – I’m still stuck on page 6 of a book I began last September!)
Eugh – blasted lack of edit function. My last comment was even more cack-handed. Just ignore me lads!
It’s quite possible she knew that it was neutral.
Just because some of us didn’t initially know that, doesn’t necessarily indicate that she doesn’t. And really, to be fair, what do we really know about her other than what she wants us to know about her?
I’m so sorry that we had to take out the comment editing! The feature was slowing down the database so much that the site was going down during peak times – remember last week when it was slow and/or down on and off for a couple of days? The server people told me I had to disable comment editing, and it did work to stabilize the site but now there’s no way to edit comments. I’m hoping to move the site to a new platform where we’ll have other alternatives to that but it will be a couple of months.
LOL – I understand CB. To be honest my internet is colossally slow anyway (3G modem) so any slowing down of the site is pretty academic to me *wink* It is funny just how reliant we became on it though.
Thank goodness for the Firefox/Safari spellcheck function. Even though we sometimes use the wrong words, at least we can be sure they’re spelt correctly!
In all fairness, she isn’t totally wrong, Sweden also has a pretty long history of neutrality in wartime, at least to the late 19th century.
It’s not a supposed blog – it’s her myspace. You’ve probably linked to reports taken from it. She rarely updates it, but um, it’s not some crazy invention she made up.
Really, I just want to know where “generally freak out in their direction” comes from – all I’ve ever seen is her not smiling or covering her face. How is that freaking out? She’s said bitchy things in interviews, but so have, well, everybody else. Is that freaking out in their direction?
It’s not like there’s that (completely justified) video of her going off like Julia Roberts.
maybe she just felt that Sweden had a better flow than Switzerland in that sentence.
I think the point CB is trying to make is that the reporter was trying to be polite and explain to Alba that he was on camera, and therefore couldn’t voice his opinions. I went to school for journalism, and we are taught over and over again not to be biased. He was politely avoiding the question to save his ass.
Meanwhile, Alba and/or her publicist always tip the paps as to where she’s going. Notice more and more pics of her ‘just being a mom’…She’s trying to pull a Nicole Richie.
Yeah, I think Alba is (rightly) concerned that she might lose her “hot young chick” cred now that she’s a mom. So she’s trying to change her image. Hopefully she’s also taking some acting lessons. Otherwise it’s 14:59 on her fifteen minutes of fame.
I seem to remember reading something about her husband having a website/blog and that she sometimes contributes to it. Can’t think of the name right now…
Regardless of which countries stayed neutral, the actual SAYING is “Switzerland.” Just because Sweden also stayed neutral doesn’t mean what she said is correct. She could’ve said “Be Spain” and that still would’ve been correct… but that’s not the popular phrase she was trying to say.
Um, Celebitchy – if you’re going to get uppity trying to correct her, I’ve got news for YOU:
It’s “incited”, not “insighted”. See, everyone makes mistakes. :-p
JM~ CB is the farthest thing from uppity. If all you have as proof of such is one misspelled word, you’ve no case whatsoever.
Alba is lame-ola at best. She is very attractive, but she has never been able to act worth a damn & all she has going for her is “the body”.
I think she should clink her gold coins together & quit this whole “legit actress” bullshit.
Actually, jm, it wasn’t Celebitchy who wrote the article, it was JayBird, so, you know, if you’re going to get all uppity trying to correct someone, make sure you’re correcting the right person.
I’m just sayin’
Good call, Diva. *headsmack*
Well, at least it would’ve been funny if she had said “Be neutral. Be Sudan about it!”
Sweden DECLARED neutrality in 1812. Alba has a mother of Scandinavian descent and may very well be more knowledgeable about Sweden than you give her credit.
Alba’s Statement was FACTUALLY CORRECT yet the morons on this site presume to know that she was thinking something else!
Your arrogance knows no bounds..
Alba has a mother of Scandinavian descent and may very well be more knowledgeable about Sweden than you give her credit.
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ya!which scandinavian country then? cause they are 5,can you be more specific,but do it without the help of google.
And in Europe the most famous country for being neutral is Switzerland,she did mistake the name of the countries,as many americans are totally ignorant about geography.
@ks…
Actually, only Norway, Sweden and Denmark are scandinavian countries. If you talk about nordic countries, then you include Finland and Iceland….
Haha, but you know that Sweden is also fairly neutral don’t you? Not as much as Switzerland, but we’ve always been considered as neutral – for example we didn’t take a stand in either of the World Wars and we’re not a member of NATO.
A minor addition on my part: When I tell people abroad I’m from Sweden they often mix it up with Switzerland. It happened so many times that they go: “oh so is it nice in Switzerland?” etc. So even if she actually did mix up the two countries she wouldn’t be the first one to do it and it doesn’t mean she’s stupid.
Jessica Alba’s mother is part-Danish
Ah, what a cutie, I addore her.
She probably had a ‘stupid attack’ and confused one /sw/-initial country with another. Actually, in her defense, Sweden isn’t a member of NATO–dunno why (they even avoided buying weaponry from either the USSR, or West, unlike that other non-NATO country Finland). BTW, Alba is partly of Danish extraction, like Eliza Dushku, Bukh Diesel engines, those Mohammed cartoons…good stuff, all.
Alba is actually quite a good actress. Actually, I can’t fathom why HOMELY actresses, like Dame Judy Dench and Merryl “She looks like a chicken!” Streep get accolades (they aren’t very good). The only flaw I can discern with this lovely, personable–and very maternal–star is her UTTERLY APPALLING taste in men. After co-staring withj the likes of Paul Walker, Tyson Beckford and Aaron Eckart, she marries THAT plain-looking, two-timing yutz Cash Warren.