Julia Fox, one of the iconoclasts of a generation with a distinct lack of icons, is best known for what is probably her least interesting thing — her brief, high-profile romance with Kanye West in 2022 Open relationship. Her character in “Uncut Gems” was inspired by her) and downtown’s multi-talented It-Girl: She designed a fashion line, self-published a photography book, and once hosted an art show painted on canvas exhibition. Her own blood. She’s now a podcast host, a single mother of one, a staple in the New York paparazzi diet, and often appears in outfits that sound like they were generated by a perverted artificial intelligence (“Julia Fox wears an outfit made entirely of artificial intelligence” transparent clothing”). condom”–very coolIn her new memoir, “Down in the Sewer,” Fox becomes a writer and tells her story with a dissociated, deadpan sweetness of a lifetime of adventure and adventure at the age of thirty-three. disaster.
Fox remembers her life primarily in records of beauty and violence. Born in Italy, she spent her childhood with her grandfather, who made zabaglione from eggs and sugar. She loved the emergency room and “the warm, calm feeling of knowing she was going to be taken care of.” When she visited New York, she slept in a house her father, a contractor, was renovating, but when she was six When she moved there, she had her own room with clouds painted on the ceiling. The physical abuse was unremarkable; she developed a habit of turning on the hairdryer to drown out the noise in her apartment and in her head. She ran around unsupervised, stealing cash, clothes, and candy. She fell in love with every girlfriend she met.
In middle school, Fox got her tongue pierced, did a sit-in in Washington, D.C., to protest the Iraq War, and discovered that she loved the attention from boys at school talking about her butt. She was hiding on the top bunk of her home from a twenty-six-year-old boy who had just kissed her and told her that she looked at least sixteen. (Fox remembers worrying about whether it would continue, in part because she hadn’t shaved.) She became acutely aware of her proximity and distance from wealth and luxury.Private school girls ‘look like this’ Clean,” she thought. “They’ll never cut their own hair like me. ” Soon she discovered that men would buy her things she liked—gold earrings, Yves Saint Laurent perfume.
Drugs arrive, and their risks are intertwined with teenage romance as an extreme sport. One night, Fox fell into ecstasy for the first time, had her first penetrative orgasm, and with every vein under her skin in the mirror terrifying her, she told the dealer she was going to marry him and get his name tattooed On the wrist. Throughout high school and her twenties, she was embroiled in a destructive, semi-glamorous inner-city mayhem: dive bars, after-parties, hotel rooms, drugs, more drugs, one overdose, another , arrested for major incident She committed theft after stealing a girl’s wallet at a club. Being broke and afraid to steal more for fear of violating her probation, she found work as a dominatrix in a Manhattan dungeon. When an opponent used her red patent leather Jimmy Choos as an ashtray, Fox filled an enema bag with her own urine and feces and squirted it into the other girl’s locker.
Foxes are obviously interesting. She was religious; she prayed for a sugar daddy and got a billionaire who tolerated her heroin use, supported her fashion ambitions, and paid for her apartment. When she realized her bathtub was filled with fish, she sought psychiatric help. She takes a Cookie Mueller-esque road trip to a Louisiana bayou, where she fishes, smokes pills, and rents a modest house on stilts on the bay. She got married, and then in the midst of divorce proceedings, she got unexpectedly pregnant; she decided to carry the pregnancy to term, in large part because her due date coincided with her late best friend’s birthday. The chapter in her book about Kanye pales in comparison. The rapper’s genius is fading and he looks like a reclusive dictator, deeply saddened.
It tells the story of a woman who is damaged, yet tender, protective, unpredictable and a self-identified freak.Fox once described himself as “an artist who played a major role in his life, playing I”. I met her recently at her new home, where her two-year-old son greeted me with a gentlemanly wave at the door, then attacked me with a stuffed dinosaur puppet, which he also turned toward a small group of dinosaurs. Friend-slash- Assistant. Fox led me downstairs to the backyard, where the picnic table was already occupied by young children—chalk, trucks, trains. It was dusk. As we spoke, Fox took a puff from his cigarette and put a stick Folding into small pieces, she arranged them neatly in order of size, the backyard slowly turning into shadow. Our conversation has been condensed and edited.
What was the moment of childbirth like for you?
Oh my God, this was better than any drug, better than anything I’d ever taken – if I could survive those ten seconds when he came out and I held him, I would.
You talked about postpartum depression, and the shocking postpartum experience, in part because motherhood is so romanticized, but also because girls are socialized from an early age to think having children is the end goal. I’m curious about this because, as your memoir makes clear, your life punctured many of your romantic ideals early on. How did you manage to become a mother while still intact?
Well, I had a lot of experience with men, but I didn’t really have the experience of being a mother. For men, the bubble bursts quickly – when I was six or seven, my dad had an affair with my best friend’s mother, a relationship that lasted for years, and it really broke me. But, as a mother, I still believe this lie.
You never had a nanny for your child, and he wasn’t in day care—
Until he was two years old.
The first two years are a lot of work, especially as a single parent. Was this a choice you made when you were pregnant? Do you want to care for your early children primarily on your own? Is it because of the pandemic?
Definitely with the pandemic a little bit, and just financially, there’s really nothing I can do about it. I guess I also came from a place where I felt like I wasn’t being taken care of properly. I want my son to know that mom is there and she has always been there.
When I was pregnant, I thought, I would hire a night nurse, hire some help. But then he was born and I thought, I don’t want to miss a moment. I’m lucky – my family is in New York and I have a lot of people to visit. My good friend Emma used to pick him up from daycare on Mondays and Fridays and take him to the park for a few hours. And I didn’t ask anyone for help at first because it was really hard for me to ask for help; I’m really proud of myself for being self-sufficient. But for a child this is impossible. That’s why now when I see moms freaking out and throwing tantrums with their kids, I might say, wow, what a terrible mom. Now I’m like that poor mother. No one sets out to be a bad parent.
Does raising your son make you think differently about the way your parents raised you?
I look at them more sideways now, in a way, like – how could they do this to us? But I also have more empathy and compassion for them because I know how difficult it is, I know they don’t have the money, they’re in a toxic relationship, but they do the best they can.
In fact, I don’t think they tried their best.
But I was more aggressive in the way I dealt with pain and anger. I’m like a Tasmanian devil – I’ll destroy everything and it’ll be cathartic. My brother internalized it all and he has now been diagnosed with severe PTSD and now my dad has come forward. He is the best grandpa to my son and my son is always happy to see him and I want to celebrate that.
