The Reason Jessica Alba's Hot Ones Episode Has Been So Controversial
"The Show with Hot questions and even hotter wings" (i.e. Hot Ones) may have given parts of Hollywood a proverbial heatstroke when Sean Evans interviewed Jessica Alba on October 1, 2020. "I feel like I can handle some heat," Alba said before the questions, and her hot sauce-smothered chicken wing eating adventure began.
Jessica Alba did handle the heat... sort of. Hollywood Life notes that the Fantastic Four actress enlisted the help of an arsenal of honey, ice, peanut butter, and a cooling face roller to survive the hot sauces she sampled. But even as she downed the chicken wings, Alba gave what might become one Hot Ones' most memorable interviews yet. (We're not counting the time that Gordon Ramsay was incapable of taking the heat, and his interview devolved into six minutes of nearly constant swears,via YouTube. That interview reigns supreme.) Because when Alba started talking about her past, she threw her former Beverly Hills, 90210 colleagues out of the frying pan and into the fire.
"On the set of 90210, I couldn't even make eye contact with any of the cast members, which was really strange when you're trying to do a scene with them," Alba told Evans, "It was like, 'You're not allowed to make eye contact with any one of the cast members or you'll be thrown off the set.'"
How Beverly Hills 90210's cast reacted to Jesica Alba's claim
Alba only appears in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210. In 1998, she played a teenage mother, "Leanne." And while the casts' stars have professed surprise at Alba's story, not one has openly denied it.
"I'm not doubting [Jessica Alba], I'm sure that was her experience," Ian Ziering (a.k. Steve Sanders) told Entertainment Tonight, "Alba's not a liar." Jason Priestly (aka Brandon Walsh) doesn't think it was an official Beverly Hills, 90210 "edict," but he told KiSS 92.5's The Roz & Mocha Show, "I'm sorry that that happened to her." Jennie Garth (aka Kelly Taylor) came the closest to admitting guilt when she chatted with costar, Tori Spelling (aka Donna Martin) on their iHeartRadio podcast, 90210MG. "If anybody... didn't want to have their eyes looked into, it would've been me," admitted Garth, "But I don't remember, because I have the world's worst memory.
Beverly Hills, 90210 director Joel Feigenbaum has spoken out via a podcast specially dedicated to Alba's Hot Ones' revelation, Beverly Hills 90210 Show: Season 8 Making Amends. "It's very possible someone could have said that to her, either seriously or not," he reflected (via Us Magazine). "I don't doubt that she heard that somehow, but I certainly was never aware of it."
As for Alba? She's in the news again. This time, it seems, she shied away from spice, and instead raving about "bomb Vegan Food" (via VegNews).