The Thirst Is Real

So earnest he doesn’t even know he’s adorable, Jaden Smith is on a mission to save us all. And he just might.

- Mickey Rapkin

At 19, Jaden Smith is already a master provocateur. Whether he’s challenging gender norms in a Louis Vuitton skirt or holding forth on the power of prana energy, he knows how to get people talking. Now he’s hoping to start a global conversation about water. More specifically, Just water—the boxed-water brand he cofounded with his father, Will Smith, and others to cut down on plastic bottles. (Just’s 100 percent recyclable carton offers a 74 percent reduction in carbon emissions over plastic.) On a break from recording his second album—the follow-up to 2017’s Syre, named for his alter ego—Jaden talks about Mother Earth, that Louis Vuitton x Supreme collab, and Tiffany Haddish.

JADEN SMITH: Sorry I’m two minutes late. I was getting out of the water. I surf every day.

ELLE: How’s the water today?

JS: Cold. But I am one with the ocean!

ELLE: You really had the idea for a recyclable water bottle when you were 11?

JS: I really did. It all started when I found out there was a patch of plastic floating in the Pacific. That traumatized me as a young’un.

ELLE: President Trump rolled back Obamaera clean-water regulations. Your generation will inherit this problem. Maybe I’m being too dramatic.