thelostogle.comUPDATE: Perhaps not liking the idea of returning to Oklahoma City for a different kind of paperwork, Jessica Alba has apologized for hooking up with the White Mike campaign.
"I got involved in something I should have had no part of," the actress said in a statement obtained by E! News. "I realize that I should have used better judgment and I regret not thinking things through before I made a spontaneous and ill-advised decision to let myself get involved with the people behind this campaign. I sincerely apologize to the citizens of Oklahoma City and to the United Way for my involvement in this incident."
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Move over, Banksy. There's a hot new vandal in town.
Jessica Alba left many citizens of Oklahoma City seeing red white last week, when she blanketed the downtown area guerrilla-style with posters of great white sharks as part of an underground effort to draw attention to the predators' dwindling population.
Unfortunately, the actress' secret mission was outed yesterday, when photos of her plastering the posters around the city—and posing victoriously in front of a defaced United Way billboard—wound up online.
Alba's effort was part of the White Mike conservation campaign, which originated in Los Angeles and late last month expanded to Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and, with help from the actress, Oklahoma City.
Alba was in town to shoot the indie crime flick The Killer Inside Me alongside Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck.
"Wow so just blasted OKL in a big way!!" reads a June 2 message on White Mike's Twitter feed. "Had a friend 'tag' along non pun intended."
Two days later, the enthusiasm returned and the unnamed friend verified.
"Just came back from OK! Had a blast tagging with a new friend. Check out the pics with Jessica Alba's help here."
While Alba has yet to publicly comment on her exploits, it seems some officials saw the bill-posting more as a nuisance than public service.
An Oklahoma City news station reported that the United Way was not amused at having to shell out $235 to replace its shark-infested billboard.
And E! News has confirmed the city's director of parks and recreation, Wendell Whisenhunt, filed a police report accusing the perpetrators (Alba is not ID'd by name) of vandalism. It seems the glue used was so strong officials are unable to remove the shark posters from the billboard, bridge and signal and electrical boxes to which they were affixed.
"I attempted to peel some of the poster away and found it to be glued very well," read the closing officer's report.
Whisenhunt also reported that he was aware of two blogs, one of which had since been taken down, that showed the unidentified suspect "posing in front of some of the posters. Two photos depict this female with a red bucket and what appears to be a bottle of glue."
Hmmm...
"We do not release suspects names unless they have a warrant issued for their arrest, charges filed, or an arrest has been made," Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department tells E! News, referring to "this female."
The involved property owners, including the United Way and power company OG&E, have not contacted authorities, according to the report.
And that poses the question: Did Alba and her fish-saving friends just jump the shark with this stunt?
—Additional reporting by Whitney English
(Originally published June 9, 2009, at 1:10 p.m. PT)
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