Jessica Biel's big regret

Jessica Biel wishes she had kept her clothes on, says Jonathan Heaf in British GQ. When the 26-year-old film actress was 17, she famously posed topless for the cover of Gear magazine, clad only in frilly panties and with a hand placed strategically over her chest.

At the time, she was starring as a wholesome teenager in the television series 7th Heaven, so the photo shoot caused a sensation. “I’d had enough of being virginal,” she explains. “When we started the shoot I was like, ‘Wow, I’m older and sexier—I’m hot!’ And then as the day drew on and I started to take off more clothes, things started to get more uncomfortable. I was thinking, This is wrong—you are starting to do things you don’t want to.”

When the session was over, she broke down and called her father, whom she had earlier shooed away from the shoot. “I was like, ‘Dad, I’ve got to stop the pictures getting out!’” But the photos ran, much to her mortification. “It was certainly the low point of my young life. And I had no one to blame but myself.” But she learned an important lesson about accepting advice from people who care about her. “I was arrogant and didn’t have anyone looking out for me. I thought I knew best.”

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