Jaden Smith is a Grammy-nominated singer/rapper, actor and model, but for his next act the 27-year-old son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has his eyes set on making a difference. In a TikTok video posted over the weekend, the first-ever men’s creative director for fashion house Christian Louboutin said he wants to leverage his I LOVE YOU brand to help feed Los Angeles’ unhoused population.
“Honestly, my dream in life is to have a building on Skid Row where I can give out free meals every single day: breakfast, lunch, dinner,” he said in the post. “I can do things inside of it — I can create jobs and, like, a good vibe. That’s my real dream, that’s my long-term goal.”
He invited his fans to come on his journey with him, stressing that at the moment he doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar store for his brand now or a permanent spot for his charitable work, but that he hopes to have one in the future.
Smith launched his vegan “I Love You Restaurant” food truck in 2019, offering healthy options for the nearly 4,000 unhoused Angelenos living on the city’s Skid Row. According to the non-profit’s website, the goal is to some day have an HQ where they can serve three free meals every day and then eventually spread the love to other cities in the U.S. and around the world. The site is currently selling a black graphic T-shirt and hoodie with the company name on the front and the message “Not a volunteer just a person trying to be the change I want to see in the world” on the back, with all profits earmarked for reinvestment into providing meals through the mobile restaurant.
In an interview with Hypebeast earlier this week, Smith said I LOVE YOU gets donations from unspecified “big corporations that actually want to be involved,” positioning the merch drop as a way to allow people who haven’t had a chance to volunteer on the ground to feel part of the community he’s trying to build. “It’s more of a spiritual purpose. And that’s what I think fashion is about, an indication, from afar, of the kind of person you are,” he said.
Smith added that the idea of giving back to people who live on Skid Row dates to his time filming his first movie, his dad’s 2006 drama The Pursuit of Happyness, which featured real unhoused people as extras. “That also just really engraved the realities of Skid Row in my brain,” he explained.
His bigger goal, he said, was to have an annual I LOVE YOU gala somewhere different around the world as well as a “matrix” of non-profits. “I just want to create a world where everyone can go outside, celebrate and change the world together,” he said.
