“That word is so cringe,” Julia Fox says, speaking to Stellar from her home in New York.
The word is “celebrity”, and the 34-year-old has mixed feelings about being called one. “It’s like eww, barf,” she deadpans.
But Fox definitely is famous. She has 1.5 million followers on Instagram, is about to launch her own TV show in the US (OMG Fashun! on E!, a reality series alongside Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach), and starred with Adam Sandler in the 2019 crime thriller Uncut Gems, playing a role that was written for her.
Born in Italy and raised in New York City, Fox wrote about her unconventional upbringing and early career (yes, she was a dominatrix) in her memoir, Down The Drain, released last year.
Her brief, highly publicised relationship with rapper Kanye West – following his split from ex-wife Kim Kardashian – propelled Fox into the gossip stratosphere.
Then came the memes, including an infamous moment from a 2022 interview with Alex Cooper on the podcast Call Her Daddy, which went viral due to Fox’s unusual pronunciation of Uncut Gems.
“I’ve always felt uncomfortable with that term,” she continues. “I don’t know when it happened; when I was all of a sudden a ‘celebrity’. I have no identification with that word. Like, I’d have to look it up. It’s just not me. I think I’m an artist who happened to get famous, and that’s it.”
Fame aside, Fox has been identified as an “It girl”, actor, writer, and muse (she is also a single mother, to three-year-old son Valentino) – but she settles on another description for herself: renaissance woman. “I do it all; I’m a superhero or a supervillain,” she laughs, adding: “To the ‘normies’, I’m a radical feminist, like implanting mean ideas about men in women’s minds or something.”
Asked what she thinks the modern day meaning of “feminist” is, Fox responds: “I guess it just means that a woman should be allowed to do whatever the f*ck she wants to do. There’s no right or wrong way to be a woman. If you want to wear a veil over your head, if you want to wear no clothes at all … If you want to be a traditional stay-at-home wife or you want to go and be a CEO. People are always trying to find the ‘right’ way to be a woman and there isn’t one; we’re humans, you can’t categorise us all in the same way. We should be allowed to explore all our options freely.”
Fox is decidedly blunt when it comes to how she deals with online scrutiny. “I really don’t care, I don’t even read the headlines; it really doesn’t impact me at all,” she says. “I know that for every sh*tty comment, there are two positive ones.”
With the attention on everything from her opinions to what she wears (she recently sported shoes made out of hair extensions), Fox insists that being a role model is “still kind of a foreign concept”.
“I just feel like me,” she says. “And then I remember people are looking to see what I’m going to do or what I’m going to say. There are days where I’m like, oh my God, what did I get myself into? Especially if I want to make a joke or be un-serious or be a troll online and post a stupid comment that I think is funny. Then they’ll say, ‘This is so insensitive! How dare you!’
“When you become famous or are considered a ‘celebrity’ – I don’t identify with that word, but I guess that’s what I am to people – you’re held to an impossible standard where you have to be perfect.
“Suddenly you have to know about every single world crisis going on. With some celebrities who get trolled it’s like, dude, this is a literal reality TV star that’s never left her gated community. How the f*ck do you expect her to know?”
People were certainly looking at Fox during her whirlwind romance with West – now known as “Ye” – in 2022.
Her first-hand account of one of their dates was documented in a viral Vanity Fair article titled Julia Fox and Kanye West: A ‘Real Cinderella Moment’.
In the aftermath, Stellar asks Fox, would she choose to date in the public eye again?
“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I’m not actively seeking it out because I’m so busy and I don’t have the emotional bandwidth.”
While not directly commenting on West – who is now married to Australian-born Yeezy architect Bianca Censori – Fox notes: “What I find happens so often in public relationships – at least what happened to me, and maybe I’m just scarred from it – is that you become known as that person’s girlfriend. And I feel like that happens so much in the media, where you’re only as good as your last boyfriend. And I just don’t want to uphold that. I want to be able to make it on my own. I don’t want anyone to be able to attribute my success to a man in my life.
“If anything, men are an obstacle I have to get through. It has never helped me. Now, there has been an uptake in these videos that are like, ‘single women are worthless’. I literally see videos that say that – I’m like, oh my God! I have never been more empowered. I’ve never seen things more clearly.
“I’ve never been a better version of myself. And then I realised men don’t want you to be a better version of yourself: they want you to be weak and insecure and have low self-esteem. It’s easier for you to fall for some bullsh*t when your head is not screwed on properly.”
When talk turns to her influential fashion choices (including a skin-coloured bra complete with chest hair), Fox says it’s “performance art. [Fashion] is a costume to me, playing a character, telling a story about maybe someone I have been in the past. It’s never to look pretty, classy, normal or regular. That, to me, is the antithesis of fashion. I wanted to tell people who I was without telling people who I was.
“I feel like the girls that get it, f*cking get it. And there are the people who are like, ‘What the f*ck? This is a freak show!’
“For so long, we’ve been used to seeing the same make-up, the same hair, everyone dressing the same cookie-cutter versions of themselves and each other. So when someone is doing something totally different, I think people don’t even know how to react anymore.”
As for the future, Fox is turning her attention back to acting; she recently landed a lead role in the horror movie Goat. “Like, ‘greatest of all time’,” she says of the title’s acronym.
“It’s loosely based around the NFL, it’s a thriller produced by Monkeypaw [the production house of US director Jordan Peele]. It’s going to be f*cking insane.”
Another book is on the agenda, and with her song – also called ‘Down The Drain’ – popular on TikTok, Fox is planning more music.
“I never thought I could pursue it for real. I thought I’d just do karaoke for the rest of my life … But now we’re breaking past self-imposed limitations in 2024.”
As with anything Fox does, her music is deeply personal. “I don’t see myself as an artist who’d have like 10 people writing a song for me,” she explains.
“It has to be authentically my voice and my experience. ‘Down The Drain’ is catchy, it’s nothing super profound, it’s fun. The hook is,” Fox switches to her singing voice: “I’m a b*tch, I’m a girl, I’m a woman, I’m a wh*re.”
Down The Drain the book and single are out now. OMG Fashun premieres on May 6 via US network E!.
Read the full interview with Julia Fox inside Stellar, and listen to Something To Talk About below:
Originally published as ‘People are always trying to find the ‘right’ way to be a woman and there isn’t one’: Julia Fox on sexism, fashion and dating in public