Jhené Aiko Grows Emotional Speaking About the ‘Dream Home’ She Lost to the L.A. Wildfires

Jhené Aiko reflected on a deeply challenging year as she accepted the Glow Getter Award at Femme It Forward’s Give Her FlowHERS Ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 23.

Onstage at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the “Pray for You” singer, 37, was joined by her 17-year-old daughter Namiko Love, her mother Christina Yamamoto, and her sisters Mila J and Miyoko. During her acceptance speech, she opened up about losing her home in the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year, and the grief that followed with the deaths of loved ones.

“I was balanced and in a great place,” she began. “And then this year, I lost my dream home that I spent a few years renovating in the LA wildfires. And then I lost my cousin Justin who I was really close with. Then I lost my sweet little orange kitten.”

She went on to say that the blows felt relentless.
“It just seemed like back to back to back to back things,” she continued. “And I was just like, ‘Okay, God, what is the lesson in all this?'”

Aiko then recalled a house fire from her childhood and how her mother’s reaction shaped the way she chose to face loss as an adult.

“I remember my mother, how she handled it with so much grace, and she never let us feel any type of sadness or any type of sorrow,” Aiko said. “We kind of thought it was cool because we got to live in the Embassy Suites [with] free breakfast, indoor pool. We were like, ‘Wow, this is nice.’ So when my house burned down this year, I remembered how she handled that so gracefully.”

Now a mother of two — she shares Namiko with producer O’Ryan and 2-year-old Noah Hasani with longtime boyfriend Big Sean — Aiko admitted she’s spent much of this year in a difficult emotional space, relying heavily on those closest to her.

She explained that she’s been “in a really dark place” and that it was her “village” of family and loved ones who helped her navigate it all.

“I honestly cannot accept these flowers,” she said. “These are their flowers.”

Back in April, three months after the wildfires tore through Pacific Palisades and destroyed roughly 6,800 homes and buildings across a 36.7-square-mile area, Aiko returned to what was left of her house. She shared photos of the wreckage on her Instagram Story, writing, “Sometimes a sigh is not enough… you gotta scream ‘F————!!!’ at the top of your lungs.”

In the final slide of that emotional series, she added, “Idk who needs to hear this, but you absolutely MUST cry about it… as often as the feeling comes.”

In the weeks that followed, Big Sean opened up about another painful chapter in their lives: the miscarriage he and Aiko experienced. Speaking on an episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, he hoped to offer comfort to others grieving similar losses.

“I can’t speak for a woman, their perspective is the most traumatic, but I can say that, first of all, you’re worthy. I don’t want you to think you’re not worthy,” he said. “I don’t want people to think that because they have a miscarriage that they’re inadequate or that they’re broken.”

Earlier this month, Big Sean also addressed breakup rumors after speculation swirled online that he had a new girlfriend.

The “Mercy” rapper, who has been in a relationship with Aiko for about a decade, responded in the comments of an Instagram post featuring a clip in which he briefly appears passing behind an unidentified woman during a livestream hosted by 21-year-old YouTuber N3on.

“Yeah unfortunately I never met this person in my life lol,” he wrote, before adding: “This girl was standing next to @hitboy who is cut out the video. I don’t know why the f— she was so close to me though. I didn’t see it at all til I saw this video and can understand the frustrations. Smh 😂. But I don’t even know this person at all.”