18-year-old Jaden Smith hopes that his celebrity status will help remove the stigma that lingers around gender fluidity. A frequent poster on Instagram, he has used the social platform to post images of himself with nail polish and wearing skirts.
Though controversial in nature, he is optimistic that others will eventually open their minds about gender fluidity and general sexuality-related lifestyles.
The son of Will and Jada Pinket-Smith, Jaden became the first male to appear on the cover of Nylon magazine. He recently explained in an interview, “So, you know, in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won’t get beat up and kids won’t get mad at him. I’m taking the brunt of it so that later on, my kids and the next generations of kids will all think that certain things are normal that weren’t expected before my time.”
He also added, “The greatest lesson I’ve learned from my parents is to be myself, at all costs, no matter what anybody thinks.”
He had previously defended his controversial decisions while on the cover of British GQ Style by adding, “I feel like people are kind of confused about gender norms. I feel like people don’t really get it. I’m not saying that I get it, I’m just saying that I’ve never seen any distinction. I don’t see man clothes and woman clothes, I just see scared people and comfortable people.”
In Jaden’s recent ad for Louis Vuitton, his attire included a patterned skirt. Jaden’s father calls him “100 percent fearless.”