The Stunning Transformation Of Julia Fox

When Julia Fox moved from her native Italy to New York City as a child, she couldn't possibly have known the impact she would eventually have on U.S. pop culture. Fox survived a wild and tragic childhood, and while most 18-year-olds were suffering from senioritis, Fox was working as a dominatrix, a job that gave her financial freedom, not to mention some improv chops. From there, her glow-up was nothing short of dazzling. 

What you might not know about Julia Fox is that she's not only a NYC socialite, but she's also a designer, a multimedia artist, a muse, an actor, and an author. She's done it all, with a mix of confidence and self-deprecation, humor and pathos, and of course, amazing style. Fox's It Girl status was cemented during the summer of 2024 when she was name-dropped in Charlie XCX's hit song "360," the chorus of which goes, "I'm everywhere/I'm so Julia." Fox dropped her own single, "Down the Drain," around the same time, and the lyrics she wrote herself in mere minutes. What's next for Fox is anyone's guess, but how she got to where she is today is fascinating. Read on to learn more about the truly stunning transformation of Julia Fox.

Julia Fox embodies the cool girl vibe of NYC style, but she spent her early childhood in Italy. Fox was born in the town of Saronno outside the fashion capital of Milan where she spent most of her time with her grandpa before moving to the U.S. at age 6. Although Fox was very young, she was acutely aware of the strangeness of her new surroundings while living with her father in Manhattan. It wasn't just her neighborhood that was different but the dynamic she had with her father. "It was just a total 180 from what I was used to," Fox told The Hollywood Reporter. "My family is Italian, traditional Catholic, and suddenly I was living with a crazy man in New York."

According to Fox, her father mostly left her to her own devices, which led to her having to navigate her new life all on her own. "He always treated me as an adult, even as a child," she explained to The Guardian. As Fox grew older, she also began to notice the differences between herself and the wealthier girls in the neighborhood. While Fox lived in Yorkville, an affluent part of Manhattan, it didn't mean she had a lot of money. Speaking with The New Yorker, she recalled watching the private school girls and noting, "They would never cut their own hair like I have to."

Julia Fox did not have a lot of supervision growing up, which led to her becoming something of a wild child. Aside from pointing out the street sign where they lived, Fox's father didn't provide much guidance, and Fox took advantage of that. "I wouldn't come home for days," she told The Guardian. "And I was allowed to do that. I think my dad was relieved that I was out of the house." Fox began partying hard when she was as young as 14, going out to clubs and bars with friends using a fake ID.

It wasn't until a frightening brush with death that Fox began to turn her life around. After surviving a near-fatal drug overdose at age 17, she decided to go down a different path. "I became like a straight-A student," she told The Guardian. "It really felt like a divine intervention."

As an adult, Fox is less likely to partake in the bustling New York City nightlife, at least when it comes to partying. It seems she got it all out of her system when she was still a teenager, and now she's been there and done that. "It was this really cheap thrill that I had become immune to," Fox explained to Paper, adding, "Sometimes I really have to push myself to socialize because I can tend to be reclusive."

Like many teenagers, Julia Fox had to work while she was in high school. She took on a series of different jobs, including scooping ice cream, working in a pastry shop, and as a retail clerk in a shoe store. Fox's father was not supporting her financially, so she really needed a lucrative gig, and eventually she found one working as a dominatrix when she was 18. "There was no sex and no nudity. It was all role-playing, and I was like, 'I can do that. I can act,'" Fox told The Hollywood Reporter.

In fact, Fox credits the unconventional job for giving her a crash course in acting. "It was improv all day long," she explained to Vanity Fair. "I'd have to be a mean nun, bitchy popular girl in high school, whatever the client wanted." Fox would have only a few minutes to dress up and get into character, which proved to be great practice for her eventual acting career.

Fox's dominatrix job also provided enough income so that she could move into her own apartment and pay all her bills. While she enjoyed the gig, eventually her clientele began to wear on her nerves. "Toward the end, I was like, 'Dude, just go get therapy and stop coming here,'" she told The Hollywood Reporter.

Julia Fox briefly attended college at The New School, majoring in media studies, but fashion was where her heart was. She and her best friend Briana Andalore started their own fashion line in 2012 called Franziska Fox, with Andalore as creative director and Fox as head designer. The pair met as teenagers in their Yorkville neighborhood and loved getting dressed up to go out. "Briana and I were really into gay parties because the music was amazing, and we loved the clothing," Fox told Into The Gloss.

As their styles matured, they decided to create their own label which embodied a minimalist sensibility paired with some sex appeal. "I really wished to propose a novel concept for knitwear, a form of dressing that I am most passionate about," Fox shared with Elle in 2014. Franziska Fox was a hit with celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Iggy Azalea, and Rumer Willis, but in 2015 Fox and Andalore decided to move on to different ventures. For Fox, the thrill wore off after a while. "Eventually, it's not exciting anymore when somebody famous or somebody you admire wears your sh*t," she told High Snob Society in 2019.

In 2015, Julia Fox switched her focus from fashion to different forms of art, and she excelled in all her artistic endeavors. Fox, who was once the muse of artists such as Curtis Kulig, Katsu, and Moises de la Renta, among others, found herself on the other side of the canvas, which she found more gratifying. "I find myself feeling much more comfortable expressing myself through art," Fox told HuffPost in 2017.

Fox, an avid photographer, released two self-published books of her work, 2015's "Symptomatic of a Relationship Gone Sour: Heartburn/Nausea" and 2016's "PTSD." The first book centered on significant relationships in Fox's life and the nature of heartbreak. "I just wanted to take something bad and make it good," she shared with Dazed. "PTSD" was released in tandem with a gallery show of the same name and chronicled a time Fox spent living in the Louisiana bayou. "I would love if I could inspire someone to take something awful that they always hide and expose it under a beautiful light," Fox told Autre when asked what she hoped audiences would take away from her work.

In 2017, Fox made a splash in the art world yet again with her gallery show "R.I.P. Julia Fox," which featured photographs, installation pieces, and paintings created with blood and silk. Fox used syringes of her own blood to create images that were both delicate and disturbing. "I feel like blood is so precious and it's only right that it be displayed on a fabric which is just as precious," the artist told HuffPost.

After her forays into fashion design and multimedia art, Julia Fox made her acting debut in the award-winning film "Uncut Gems" in 2019. The film, which starred Adam Sandler, was written and directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, both of whom had Fox in mind when they penned the script. They even named the character Julia, as she was in fact based on Fox. She told The Guardian that after reading the script, she asked the Safdie brothers, "Have you been spying on me?"

Obviously, she was a shoo-in for the role, but there was pressure on the filmmakers to cast a more high-profile actor. According to Fox, she'd heard Lady Gaga, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence, and even Kim Kardashian were considered for the part. "They auditioned about 300 girls," Fox told The Guardian. "I didn't want to put myself in an uncomfortable position where I would be obsessing over it and doing the compare-and-contrast thing."

While the part ultimately went to Fox, she was initially apprehensive about whether she'd be able to live up to the Safdies' faith in her. "I was nervous the first day because ... what if I tricked all these people into thinking I can do this, and then they yell 'action!' and I have no idea how to act?" Fox admitted. But she needn't have worried so much, as she all but stole the show in the scenes she appeared in.

After four years of being single, Julia Fox met pilot Peter Artemiev. The couple had a whirlwind romance, and in 2018, they tied the knot in a Las Vegas chapel after just one month of dating. "We were so in love," Fox said on her podcast "Forbidden Fruits" in 2022. "I literally dreamed him up and manifested him" (via Elle).

But love was not enough to keep the couple together, and the union was simply not built to last. Artemiev filed for divorce in February of 2020, though he and Fox remained connected. The couple welcomed a son, Valentino, in January of 2021, and for Fox, giving birth was the best experience of her life. "If I could live in those ten seconds on a loop, of him coming out, me holding him, I would," she told The New Yorker.

While motherhood was blissful for Fox, her relationship with Valentino's father became more tense than ever. In December of 2021, Fox used her social media to trash Artemiev, calling him a "deadbeat dad" in an Instagram Story and listing the many strip clubs he allegedly frequented instead of helping her pay the bills. Artemiev denied Fox's claims, and she later apologized, explaining on her podcast, "He just really did not step up to the plate in the way that I wanted" (via Elle). Fox has also expressed how motherhood can be unfair for single mothers due to gender-based double standards and expectations.

In January of 2022, Julia Fox was spotted out and about with controversial rapper Kanye West. The pair met through mutual friends, and apparently Fox was completely swept off her feet by West's grand romantic gestures. At least, that's what she wrote in an essay for Interview Magazine, which she later explained was re-written by West himself. The reality was, there was nothing especially romantic about the brief relationship Fox and West shared, as Fox became convinced the rapper was just using her to get back at his ex-wife, the stunning Kim Kardashian. "I realized pretty quickly I was being used as a pawn," Fox told The Sunday Times.

According to Fox, she and West never consummated their relationship. What's more, tried to control her by pre-approving her outfits before going out in public. He even suggested Fox get breast implants, which she refused. The relationship only lasted a few weeks, but it got more than its fair share of publicity. It was over once West insisted Fox sign a non-disclosure agreement. "I was in probably the most uncomfortable position in my life and that's saying a lot," Fox wrote in her memoir (via The Times). "I don't want to be known for being anyone's girlfriend." 

Ultimately, dating West was a reset for Fox's life. The experience helped remind her that she is strong woman who is unwilling to put up with things that do not serve her best interests. She also credited motherhood with helping her move on before things turned ugly. "No man, no matter how rich or famous, is worth one minute away from my child," she told The Times.

Although a drug overdose at age 17 scared Julia Fox straight for a while, that didn't mean she had sworn off all substances. The actor was known to be something of an avid weed smoker and even admitted that she was stoned during a 2022 interview that went viral because of her drawn-out pronunciation of "Uncut Gems."

In 2023, Fox revealed that she had quit smoking weed –and not just because she'd misplaced her smoking device. She felt that it wasn't working for her anymore, but there was more to it than that. "I started to feel like this thing was causing me to check out — to be a bystander to my life," she told The New Yorker.

Fox shared that even drinking was something she'd only do occasionally, limiting herself to wine and keeping it to maybe once a month. The responsibilities of being a mom with a busy schedule no longer allowed for Fox to party like she used to. "I have to wake up early, all of that. So, I can never just let loose," she explained.

In 2022, Julia Fox made a red carpet announcement that she was writing a book, telling a Vanity Fair reporter, "So far, it's a masterpiece, if I do say so myself." Those unfamiliar with Fox's game might have dismissed her remarks, but she did not disappoint. In October of 2023, Fox's memoir, "Down the Drain," became a New York Times Bestseller.

"Down the Drain" chronicles Fox's childhood to her wild and, at times, disturbing experiences with sex, drugs, and fame. Fox prides herself on having written the book herself, unlike some celebrity authors who choose to use a ghostwriter. But Fox was asked repeatedly by the media if the words in the book were really her own, which she found to be offensive. "It goes back to people always underestimating me or not taking me seriously," she told The New York Times.

Fox, who cites William S. Burroughs as an inspiration, had to choose who and what she would write about, carefully disguising certain people in her life so as not to damage their reputations. What she was most concerned with were the aspects of the book that talked about her family, but she kept it real in her writing. "It doesn't paint the best picture," she said. "But ... I'm sure a lot of people will be able to relate."

As for the book being a masterpiece, Fox joked with Vanity Fair that she'd rate it better than the bible, but not as good as "The Catcher in the Rye."

Julia Fox has long been an outspoken feminist, encouraging women to focus on their goals and careers instead of giving all their energy to the men in their lives. After many difficult encounters, a failed marriage, and a public farce of a relationship with a high-profile rapper, it seemed Fox herself had sworn off men. In 2023, she said she was hesitant to date a woman, but it seemed to her an inevitability. "There's no coming back from it, and I know that I'll just be a lesbian. It will happen, eventually," she told The Los Angeles Times.

A year later, her prediction came true, as Fox posted a video on TikTok referring to herself as a lesbian. Fox also told The Sunday Times that she had been celibate for a while — it had given her a new and clearer perspective on life — but she was open to dating a woman. "I'd definitely be up for a relationship with a woman. You cannot equate that to a relationship with a man," she said.

Although Julia Fox abandoned her knitwear brand to branch out into other areas of the art world, she has remained a fashion icon. Fox's outfits are constantly evolving and becoming more outrageous, but she continues to serve in paparazzi pics as well as on red carpet runways. In 2024, Fox embraced her fashion roots and began hosting a reality competition show called "OMG Fashun!" along with famed stylist to the stars, Law Roach.

Fox donned an outfit made from sneakers on an episode of The Today Show to promote the new reality series. "It's what our show is about ... taking the old and making it new and desirable," she explained. "OMG Fashun!" featured emerging designers tasked with creating a look for Fox using upcycled materials. The winner would take home $10,000 and bragging rights for dressing Julia Fox. The overall vibe of the show was fun and aspirational, much like Fox herself. "I don't want to see people losing and then crying about it," she told Variety. "I want to see people winning and crying."