Jessica Alba explains why she stopped acting at the ‘top of my career’

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Jessica Alba has revealed why she hit pause on her acting career after giving birth to her first child.

The 39-year-old welcomed a daughter named Honor in 2008. The co-founder of The Honest Company, who is on the March cover of Romper, got candid about how motherhood changed her outlook about her health and Hollywood.

"My mother had cancer at a really young age," the star told the outlet. "Many women in my family have passed from various different cancers, none of them genetic."

Alba noted that she "grew up with chronic illness."

"I had five surgeries before I was 11 years old," she explained. "I had chronic allergies, and I was hospitalized a lot as a child. I had this real moment of, I want to live and thrive, and spend as much time with this little person that I’m bringing into the world as possible and stay. So, my health matters. I want this little person to be healthy. And it’s really freaking hard to be happy when you don’t have your health."

JESSICA ALBA REVEALS SHE USED TO ATTEMPT TO ACHIEVE 'MUSCLE FAILURE' IN INTENSE WORKOUTS

Jessica Alba attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California.  (Photo by David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

"That’s really what motivated me," Alba continued. "My motivation was not like, ‘Am I ever going to get hired again?’ Frankly, I was at the top of my career."

After giving birth to Honor, Alba realized she "couldn’t go back to what I was doing before and be authentic."

"I just couldn’t," Alba admitted. "I just didn’t care about it anymore the same way. It was something bigger. I feel like if I was going to, I guess, sort of get this platform, what can I do with it that could be meaningful and make a difference? That reality just felt so real when I became a mom for the first time."

Today, Alba is also a proud mom to daughter Haven, 9, and son Hayes, 3, with husband Cash Warren, 42. The couple originally tied the knot in 2008.

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Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren. (Getty)

On Feb. 7, Alba took to Instagram where she shared a video of herself and her father dancing together. According to Alba, patriarch Mark Alba had thyroid cancer and was undergoing "radiation therapy."

In her post, Alba shared encouraging hashtags, such as "let’s go" and "you got this."