Julia Fox

Julia Fox (born February 2, 1990) is an Italian-American actress and model. Her debut performance was in the 2019 film Uncut Gems, for which she was nominated for the Breakthrough Actor Award at the 2019 Gotham Awards. She is also known for her eccentric style and online presence.

In October 2023, Fox released her debut novel, a memoir titled Down The Drain. She has since released a single by the same name. She also hosts a Spotify podcast with Niki Takesh, titled Forbidden Fruits.

Early life and education

Fox was born in Milan, Italy, to an Italian mother, Gracie, and an American father, Thomas Fox, who worked as a contractor. The two split during her childhood. Fox has two siblings. Until age six, she was raised by her grandfather in the small town of Saronno, located outside of Milan, while her mother finished college. During this time, Fox's father lived on a boat docked off of New York City. In Italy, she lived in a one-bedroom apartment with her mother's family, and was raised in a Catholic household. At age six, she moved to New York City to live with her father in Yorkville, Manhattan, while also regularly visiting her mother in Italy.

At age 14, Fox moved back to Italy to stay with a host family that lived near her mother's hometown, and attended a private Catholic school. She was asked to leave the host family due to smoking and skipping school, and lived alone in her mother's empty apartment for some time until she returned to New York.

While growing up, Fox experienced periods of relative homelessness, and had a difficult relationship with her parents. Her father was "volatile and verbally abusive", and her mother was "absent for long stretches" when Fox visited her, and the two also "fought explosively". At age 15, she left home to live with her boyfriend, who was a drug dealer. After he was imprisoned, she moved into a friend's home. Fox ended their relationship after he sent her a death threat that also targeted her family.

Fox worked several service jobs as a teenager, including at a shoe store, an ice cream shop, and a pastry shop. While attending City-As-School High School, she worked as a dominatrix for six months in the East Village, after discovering the job in a Craigslist "adult gigs" section. Fox also drank, attended parties, went clubbing, and was arrested several times. At age 15, Fox was caught shoplifting from Bloomingdale's and banned from the store. She was put on probation for three years for stealing and grand larceny for credit card fraud. After a suicide attempt at age 16, Fox was placed into a psychiatric ward, where she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Fox also developed a heroin addiction. At age 17, she overdosed and had a near-death experience.

Fox briefly attended the New School in New York City as a media studies major, and later dropped out.

Career

Modeling, art, and fashion design

Fox started as a clothing designer and launched a successful women's knitwear luxe line, Franziska Fox, with her friend Briana Andalore. She also worked as a model, posing for the last nude edition of Playboy in 2015, and as an exhibiting painter and photographer. She self-published two books of photography, Symptomatic of a Relationship Gone Sour: Heartburn/Nausea, published in 2015, and PTSD, published in 2016. In 2017, Fox hosted an art exhibit titled "R.I.P. Julia Fox'", which featured silk canvases painted with her own blood.

She has since appeared in campaigns for Tiffany & Co., Diesel, Coach New York, and Supreme; and in editorials for CR Fashion Book, The Last, Office, Wonderland, Vogue, Vogue Italia, The Face, Paper, V, and Interview. She has also appeared on the covers of Vogue Czechoslovakia, Elle Brasil, and New York Magazine.

Acting

Fox made her feature film debut in the 2019 Safdie brothers A24 film Uncut Gems, playing a showroom saleswoman and mistress of the film's protagonist Howard Ratner (played by Adam Sandler), an erratic jewelry dealer and gambling addict. Fox had known the Safdie brothers for almost a decade after meeting Josh Safdie through a chance encounter at a café in SoHo, Manhattan. She was subsequently nominated for Breakthrough Actor in the 2019 Gotham Awards.

She starred in Ben Hozie's PVT Chat, playing a cam girl named Scarlet. The film was released in the United States on February 5, 2021. She was seen in No Sudden Move which released in the United States on July 1, 2021.

She starred in the drama movie Puppet, which was released in late 2022. Fox is also set to portray Hollywood hairdresser Carrie White in upcoming biopic Upper Cut based on White's memoir. In March 2022, it was announced that Fox is set to star in the dark comedy The Trainer opposite Vito Schnabel, who also writes, and Steven Van Zandt, led by director Tony Kaye.

Other work

Fox wrote and directed Fantasy Girls, a short film about a group of teenage girls involved in sex work living in Reno, Nevada, which was released in 2021.

Fox was previously a co-owner and investor of a nightclub in the Lower East Side named Happy Ending, now defunct.

In October 2023, her memoir Down the Drain, was published by Simon & Schuster. She drew inspiration from William S. Burroughs' Junkie, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, and David Sedaris' Naked. The memoir will be developed into a TV series by Joey Soloway.

In February 2024, she performed her debut song, which shares the same name as the title of her 2023 memoir, at Charli XCX's Party Girl DJ warehouse rave set for the Boiler Room.

Personal life

In November 2018, Fox married private pilot Peter Artemiev. Their divorce was finalized in July 2020. They resided together in Yorkville, Manhattan. Fox's son, Valentino, was born on January 17, 2021, and Fox announced the birth on February 14.

In October 2022, she said that she experienced postpartum depression. She also said she has obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), and that she is autistic. Fox also claimed she has bipolar disorder during an episode of Forbidden Fruit, a podcast she co-hosts.

In 2019, a close friend of Fox's died of a fentanyl overdose. Fox has spoken about how her friend's death influenced her to remain sober.

In an article she wrote for Interview in January 2022, Fox confirmed that she was dating rapper Kanye West. The two broke up the following month. Shortly after the break-up, a doctored headline of Fox, claiming the relationship ended due to West's dislike of her going "goblin mode" went viral online, prompting the phrase "goblin mode" to become widely used. Fox confirmed that the headline was false.

In 2024, Fox claimed to have been celibate for 2 and a half years.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music video

Awards and Nominations

References

External links

• Julia Fox at IMDb