Purple Urkle: Family Matters Star Jaleel White Launches Cannabis Brand

Jaleel White delighted fans for years on Family Matters as the lovable character Urkel, and now White is bringing a little Urkel flair to the world of cannabis. White has joined up with 710 Labs for a new cannabis line called ItsPurpl (via Forbes). As the name implies, it features variants of the cannabis strain Purple Urkle, and the line will have Purple Urkle strains sold as eights, vape pens with 710 Labs' propriety live resin pods, and Noodle Doinks. The ItsPurpl line will launch on April 20th starting in California and hopes to expand to more marketplaces in the future. White explained why he decided to jump into the industry in a new interview, saying "The thing that always stood out to me was there no clear brand leader for fire purple weed. It made no sense to me, that no company of significance had claimed this lane, so why not me?"

The partnership with 710 Labs started because founder Brad Melshenker met White on a flight, and through the conversation, they realized how passionate they both were for cannabis.

"710 has never been a brand that pursued celebrity deals or endorsements as our agenda has always been quality above all else," Melshenker says. "We tend to let the product speak for itself. But over the years Jaleel and I became friends and organically our conversations developed into a project. He was on a journey to find the real Purple Urkel from back in the early 2000's. Not only that, he wanted to find the most flavorful purple cultivars and had been collecting seeds with his friend Sean over the years just for this purpose."

White explained he's wanted to get into the cannabis space for a while, and he was approached a lot over the years, but was waiting for the right partnership.

"It's been years really. More than five at least," White said. "Friends and family always thought it was funny to send me bootlegged pics of myself featured on cannabis products in dispensaries across the country. A childhood friend from the second grade is the person I credit with making sure I went about things the right way. Every few months since at least 2016, a new businessman would come along with ideas that felt very exploitative of the Urkel character legacy and money-minded. My pal Sean would shut them down like a protective big brother. Only one other thing has taught me more patience than this process of getting to market, and that's parenting my daughter, Samaya."

White hopes that after California they'll head to New York next, and he wants it nationwide and in Canada and Europe eventually too.