We Read Julia Fox's Memoir So You Don't Have To

Also..what is going on with Will and Jada, and Bradley and Gigi?!?

If you think you don’t know who Julia Fox is, you’re probably wrong. She’s the actress who starred in Uncut Gems, who went viral for calling it “uncut jaaaaaaaaammmzzzz,” who briefly dated Kanye West, who bleached her brows before all the other Johnny Come Latelys, who wears crazy shit. You have definitely experienced Julia Fox, at least in passing. Anyway, on Tuesday, Julia Fox’s memoir, Down the Drain finally hit bookstores, and also my Kindle. And let me tell you, this read was a ride.

The back flap copy of Down the Drain reads:

Julia Fox is famous for many things: her captivating acting, such as her breakout role in the film Uncut Gems; her trendsetting style, including bleached eyebrows, exaggerated eyeshadow, and cutout dresses; her mastery of social media, where she entertains and educates her millions of followers. But all these share the trait for which she is most famous: unabashedly and unapologetically being herself.

This commitment to authenticity has never been more on display than in Down the Drain. With writing that is both eloquent and accessible, Fox recounts her turbulent path to cultural supremacy: her parents’ volatile relationship that divided her childhood between Italy and New York City and left her largely raising herself; a possessive and abusive drug-dealing boyfriend whose torment continued even from within Rikers Island; her own trips to jail as well as to a psychiatric hospital; her work as a dominatrix that led to a complicated entanglement with a sugar daddy; a heroin habit that led to New Orleans trap houses and that she would kick only after the fatal overdose of her best friend; her own near-lethal overdoses and the deaths of still more friends from drugs and suicide; an emotionally explosive, tabloid-dominating romance with a figure she dubs “The Artist”; a whirlwind, short-lived marriage and her trials as a single parent striving to support her young son. Yet as extraordinary as her story is, its universality is what makes it so powerful. Fox doesn’t just capture her improbable evolution from grade-school outcast to fashion-world icon, she captures her transition from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood. Family and friendship, sex and death, violence and love, money and power, innocence and experience—it’s all here, in raw, remarkable and riveting detail.

More than a year before the book’s publication, Fox’s description of it as “a masterpiece” in a red carpet interview went viral. As always, she was just being honest. Down the Drain is a true literary achievement, as one-of-a-kind as its author.

That does about cover it, actually — with the expected OTT publisher hyperbole, of course. (It’s their job to sell the book, after all!) Before we dive into the meat of the book itself, if you missed the aforementioned “masterpiece” interview, it’s very funny and at least partially tongue-in-cheek:

I want every author to be carrying this energy into their next project. Instead of the usual moaning and groaning — of which I, too, am guilty! — perhaps we should all be announcing that whatever we’re working on is a masterpiece.

And, masterpiece or not, ultimately Down the Drain was highly, even propulsively, readable. Here are the top eight takeaways:

1. Julia Fox’s book is not about Kanye. The artist formerly known as Kanye West, whom Julia refers to as “the artist” and who refers to himself now as Ye, doesn’t show up until 90% of the way through Down the Drain and their relationship, which was apparently very short and definitely weird, takes up perhaps five pages of the narrative. I will note that this is also the worst-written section of the book. I do not think Julia is protecting Kanye — he comes off poorly, as you’ll see in my next section — but I do think she knew curiosity about him is a huge part of why people are reading the book, and felt obligated to include it even if she couldn’t drag it out very far beyond, “What a weirdo.”¹ I also think she didn’t want to acknowledge how much she was using him for clout — which, of course she was; one thing you learn from this book is that Julia is a real hustler and no dummy. I’d be interested to read her take on this chapter of her life in about ten years.

2. Having said that, Julia Fox makes clear that Kanye sucks as a boyfriend or even as a “boyfriend,” as Julia never really signed off on being exclusive and their romantic entanglement was very, very brief. Among Ye’s weird (alleged) behaviors: Calling the paps on