With the imminent release of her memoir, Down the Drain, Julia Fox has been sharing more details of her personal life that have caused a lot of conjecture before, particularly about her relationship with Kanye West. In an interview on Friday with The Los Angeles Times, Fox shared that when she and the rapper were linked in 2022, she felt he “weaponized” her against his former wife, Kim Kardashian.
“I thought ultimately I’d be helping a precarious situation, but I learned very quickly that I was being weaponized,” she claimed.
She added that she “really understood” West “on a visceral level” and thought their connection “could be something real,” but he did not treat her as she expected to be treated.
Fox stated, “I just felt like his little puppet.”
The memoir will share some more details on the time she spent with West, though she says she “went lightly” on him. However, she never signed a non-disclosure agreement.
“I’m not signing a f-cking NDA just on principle,” she said. “I never have, and I never will… Unless it’s a professional opportunity, then sure.”
West and Fox only dated briefly, but she still said she believes that the relationship interfered with certain opportunities. The rapper was himself dropped from a number of brand deals following his very public anti-Semitic comments.
“I know for a fact I’ve been up for certain things and couldn’t do it because of dating Kanye. It’s kind of wild,” she said. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but other people made it such a big deal.”
After they broke it off, Fox said she stopped dating for a while. She focused on her two-year-old son Valentino, who she shares with ex-husband Peter Artemiev.
“That romanticized idea of men doesn’t exist anymore,” she said. “All the validation I could ever get, I get from my son—the love, the intimacy, the closeness. We co-sleep at night. I have all of that. I wouldn’t want anyone to come in and take my attention or time away from my son.”
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.