Julia Fox

Julia Fox (born February 2, 1990) is an Italian-American actress and model. As an actress, she is known for her debut performance in the 2019 film Uncut Gems, for which she was nominated for the Breakthrough Actor Award at the 2019 Gotham Awards. Fox is also known for her eccentric style and online presence.
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 and directing
Fox made her feature film debut in the 2019 Safdie brothers Netflix 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.
Fox also 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. 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.
Writing
On March 27, 2022, Fox mentioned during an interview that she had begun working on her first book. On March 24, 2023, Fox took to Instagram to announce the completion of her memoir Down the Drain, which is set to be published on October 10, 2023 by Simon & Schuster. Fox drew inspiration from William S. Burroughs's Junkie, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, and David Sedaris's Naked.
Business ventures
Fox was previously a co-owner and investor of a nightclub in the Lower East Side named Happy Ending, now defunct.
Personal life
In November 2018, Fox married private pilot Peter Artemiev. Their divorce was finalized in July 2020. They resided together in Yorkville, Manhattan. Their son, Valentino, was born on January 17, 2021; 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.
In 2019, a close friend of Fox's passed away due to 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 due to disagreements. 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 October 2023, her memoir 'Down the Drain', was published by Simon & Schuster chronicling her life.
Filmography
Film
Television
Music video
Awards and nominations
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century Italian actresses
Actresses from Milan
American female models
Italian emigrants to the United States
Italian female models
Italian people of American descent
Actors with autism
American actors with disabilities
Kanye West
People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
People with obsessive–compulsive disorder