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She's had a pretty interesting life.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Jan 27, 2022
Julia Fox has continued to grace headlines amid her budding romance with rapper Kanye West.
Fox first gained notoriety after starring in the 2019 drama film, 'Uncut Gems,' starring alongside Adam Sandler.
However, the 31-year-old actress has been sprouting back up in the media after being spotted out at dinner in Miami with West at the beginning of the year.
Their relationship only seemed to attract even more media frenzy after photos of the couple were published in Interview magazine, where Fox wrote about her night out with the Yeezy designer, titling the article 'Date Night.'
Fox was even featured and credited in West's recent song that disses Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson's relationship.
With the resurgence of Fox, many people have noted some rather interesting details about her life before she became famous.
Here are 8 details about Julia Fox's past, including her heroin addiction, battles with homelessness, and working as a Dominatrix.
1. Julia Fox was born in Italy but raised in New York by her single father.
Though Fox was born in Milan Italy, she and one of her brothers were raised in New York City by her father, while her mom and older brother remained in Italy.
"My dad is American. He's, like, a seventh generation New Yorker. He's out of his mind. I pretty much grew up with him," Fox told High Snob Society.
She described her father as a "mad scientist recluse," adding that he still lives in New York City, but that he's not really around.
2. Fox says she spent some of her childhood homeless.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Fox opened up about how she experienced homelessness while living with her father.
“We stayed at whatever apartment my dad was renovating at the time. We were, like, homeless," Fox said.
“I’d go live at friends’ houses — it was always some sort of dysfunctional family with a single mom, and I’d find my way in, and my dad didn’t care.”
3. Julia Fox worked as a Dominatrix at 18-years-old.
Fox credits her first experience acting as being in high school, where she worked as a Dominatrix as her after-school job.
"My after school job was a dominatrix, so you know, it was fantasy role play," Fox told Paper magazine. "And it's legal. There's no nudity, no penetration. It was all just role play. "
Fox shared that she would go into a room with a stranger and put on an act of, "I am going to dominate you!"
"I was thrown into that as a teenager, so I'm good under pressure and I can read someone and know what it is that they want. I pick up subtle cues very well and pay attention to detail," Fox said.
4. Julia Fox suffered from a heroin addiction.
In January 2020, Fox revealed that when she was 17-years-old, she almost suffered from a near-fatal overdose.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fox admitted that many people she had grown up with had also done drugs.
"It's kind of a miracle that I'm okay because a lot of the people I grew up with aren't doing so well," Fox shared. "They're still on drugs or in jail. A lot of them died."
During her interview with The New Yorker in July, the actress said she is now sober after struggling with heroin and pills for quite some time.
Her experience with drugs inspired some of her art books which feature “a lot of stuff about abuse and addiction and sex work,” she says.
“It felt good to pull this veil off my life. Sure, it was bad, but it’s not, like, the worst.”
5. She created paintings using her own blood.
Back in 2017, Fox created a multimedia exhibition called 'R.I.P Julia Fox,' that featured paintings with her blood on silk.
"Yes, it’s my blood," Fox told HuffPost. "I wanted the show to be as authentic and personal as possible."
Fox extracted her blood with a syringe, and used the syringe to paint the silk, claiming, "it wasn't that bad."
"I guess I’ve always been fascinated with death," Fox said after being asked why she chose to use her own blood. "I’ve had a few near death experiences."
"I was exploring death in all forms, one of them being sacrificial. Death as an offering to the great creator. Energy can only be transferred, it can’t ever die."
6. Fox's role in 'Uncut Gems' was specifically written for her, but she had to audition.
In the film, Fox played Julia De Fiore, the mistress of Adam Sandler's character, Howard Ratner.
Fox had begun a friendship with the movie's co-creator, Josh Safdie, during the time where him and his brother, Benny Safdie, were in the early stages of writing 'Uncut Gems.'
"The Julia character being into photography, tattooing a guy's name on her, even having an all-out fight with a guy in front of a club are all things from Fox's real life (though the tattoo of an ex is not on her rear end)," an Insider profile on Fox revealed.
However, the role of Julia wasn't guaranteed to Fox, and she still had to audition.
"Going up against hundreds, she fought for the role and got the part that was written for her."
7. Julia Fox frequented nightclubs as early as 14-years-old.
Since Fox had a rather lenient father growing up, the actress had been allowed to go out to clubs when she was 14-years-old.
She even became a part owner and investor of a nightclub at one point during her clubbing phase.
However, by the time Fox had turned 18, she was beginning to feel burnt out from the club scene, especially after her near-fatal overdose.
"Growing up in New York, you start going out really young. I was 14 years old in clubs, you know? By the time I was 18, I was tired," Fox told Paper magazine.
"It just got boring and repetitive. I already knew what the night would be like - it just wasn't fulfilling to me anymore. It was this really cheap thrill that I had become immune to."
8. Fox once tattooed her boyfriend's name on her finger.
Just like her character in 'Uncut Gems,' where in a scene, gets a tattoo of her boyfriend's name after a fight, the real-life Fox did the same thing.
When asked about elements in the film that might reflect her own life, Fox told Cosmopolitan about the tattoo.
"The tattoo thing, when I got the tattoo when Howard was mad at me. I've actually done that when my boyfriend was mad at me," Fox explained.
"I went and got his name tattooed to show him how devoted and committed I was. It's on my finger. I still have it actually. I did it on my ring finger."
9. Julia Fox says she created a short film after uncovering a "prostitution ring."
The short film 'Fantasy Girls,' which is directed, produced, and written by Fox, tells the story of four teens in Reno, Nevada, who attempt to perform in a talent show while being pursued by a kidnapper.
The film was inspired by a real-life prostituion ring that Fox and her friend discovered during a trip to Reno.
"I wanted to tell stories, and I knew that I had good stories," Fox told Elle. "So I went to Reno with my childhood best friend with [the idea of] making a movie."
"We enter the city and meet this group of kids on the side of the road, and we just both knew, we're going to uncover this story in this little mix."
After learning what was happening, Fox felt compelled to tell their story, but didn't want to do it in a way that was going to be seen as explotative.
"So many children are being trafficked and girls go missing all the time, and they were at risk," she continued. "I was like, I want to tell this story in an artful way, not like a documentary."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.