Jhené Aiko got candid about her “difficult” year after losing her dream home in the Los Angeles wildfires in early 2025.
The singer reflected on what she experienced, and the personal struggles she dealt with after that, during her acceptance speech for the Glow Getter Award at Femme It Forward’s Give Her FlowHers Ceremony.
"I was balanced, and in a great place, and then, this year, I lost my dream home that I spent a few years renovating in the LA wildfires,” she said. “ And then I lost my cousin Justin whom I was really close with. Then I lost my sweet little orange kitten."
"It just seemed like back to back to back to back things, and I was just like, 'Okay, God, what is the lesson in all this?'" she added. Afterward, the singer reflected on a house fire that she experienced during her childhood and how her mother reacted to it.
"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 remember how she handled that so gracefully."
At the end of her speech, the singer said the flowers she was accepting were for her “village” of loved ones who helped her get through the “dark place” she was in this year.
In January, Aiko lost her home to the Pacific Palisades fire. In March, she returned to the area and shared pictures of the devastation on her Instagram Stories. "Finally saw it for myself...3 months later,” she wrote on one slide.
In a follow-up, Aiko wrote, "sometimes a sigh is not enough...you gotta scream 'F------------!!!' at the top of your lungs."
Aiko ended the Instagram Stories post with advice to anyone who neglects to express their emotions. "Idk who needs to hear this, but you absolutely MUST cry about it...as often as the feeling comes," she wrote.